Da Gama still in the dark

Sy Lerman

Like a canny chess master making his first move, new Bafana Bafana coach Stuart Baxter this week announced his squad to face Nigeria in the testing Caf Nations Cup qualifier in Nigeria on June 10.

But surprisingly, Baxter remained mum in revealing his technical team, effectively valuable “pawns” in his overall master plan to secure Bafana’s qualification for next year’s World Cup Finals in Russia and the 2019 Cup of Nations.

And a widespread viewpoint among those present at the long-awaited squad announcement at Safa headquarters was that a measure of disagreement persisted between Baxter and the controlling body of South African football in regard to the composition of the technical team.

The mystery was only heightened when Bafana public relations head, Matlhomola Morake, confirmed that the technical staff of deposed Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba remained, at this juncture, still in the employment of Safa – but apparently in a largely inactive, passive manner.

And, in this respect, particularly difficult to comprehend has been the manner in which Safa have shied away from making any pronouncements on the future status of erstwhile Bafana assistant and caretaker coach Owen da Gama, who has filled both these arduous and tricky roles with a good deal of distinction.

Now that Baxter has named his squad there is still nothing on the technical team generally and Da Gama in particular.

All this six months after Mashaba was dismissed, with Da Gama still in the dark as to what the future holds for him.

Asked to comment on the issue, Da Gama confirmed he had not been contacted and “knew nothing” about what was going on.

“More than that I do not want to comment at this stage,” he added.