Twilight time for SA’s Pienaar
POINT OF NO RETURN: LEGEND COULD HANG UP HIS BOOTS
Sy Lerman
The eyebrow-raising, if not totally unexpected decision this week by battling Premier League champions Bidvest Wits University to terminate a brief sixmonth association with 35-yearold former Bafana Bafana captain Steven Pienaar will realistically raise the question of whether the split will mark the end of a South African football legend?
One aspect of the conundrum that is beyond speculation is that no PSL club will in the current environment offer Pienaar anything like the reputed R425 000 monthly salary that was negotiated by Wits for the former Ajax, Dortmund, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur and Sunderland midfielder and made him one of the highest-paid footballers in the country – even though this amount is far below that which the clinical and articulate Pienaar commanded during his distinguished career in Europe.
Pienaar, who surrendered the Bafana captaincy when he made the surprise decision to retire from international football in 2012, has in the past few years suffered from debilitating injury and is clearly not the player he once was – particularly as a key member of the Everton side.
And the cardinal question facing him now is whether to hang up his boots as a player and seek some other football-related position at club or Safa level, where his experience could be invaluable.
Significantly, both Cape Town City and Orlando Pirates, who demonstrated an interest in signing Pienaar before he linked up with Wits have now made it known they were no longer in the market for the player.
“We have a special kinship with Steven because of his early connections with Cape Town football,” said Cape Town City boss John Comitis, “but we no longer have the need to solve a problem in midfield that once existed and there is therefore no need to pursue his signing”.
At the same time, a Pirates spokesman said it was now highly unlikely that the Buccaneers would look towards the former Bafana captain to help solve their problems after his lacklustre, injury-plagued spell with Wits.