Decision on Baxter’s assistant up in the air

Sy Lerman

Deadlock. That would seem the only logical explanation for the failure by Safa to announce Bafana Bafana’s assistant coach a matter of five months after Stuart Baxter was appointed head coach.

Baxter apparently was loth to see former Bafana assistant and caretaker coach Owen da Gama retain a position as his deputy, despite not coming out openly and saying it.

But with the deputy certainly axed, if not cast aside via a barrage of bullets, there has not been any definitive movement regarding a successor.

And the signs suggest there is a difference of opinion between Baxter and Safa as to who should fill the role of Bafana’s assistant coach.

Baxter has made use of former Bafana and Manchester United star Quinton Fortune as the main helping hand in recent Bafana games and one imagines would love to have to him as his full-time assistant.

But Fortune also has commitments on Manchester United’s development staff and Safa would seem to be of the view that the job should be handled by a full-time assistant coach.

And this is why the difference between Safa and the Bafana coach appears to be unresolved.

Baxter is content enough to let the present arrangement involving Fortune and other subsidiary Safa national coaches remain in place until a better, or equally suitable contender for the deputy coaching position can be found.