Safa must be more shrewd with future contracts

THE way I see it from a distance in “dozy Durbs” is that Pitso “I am one of the best” Mosimane owes the SA Football Association eight months’ salary, not the other way round.

We are informed “Jingles” wants super compensation after his sacking as the latest unsuccessful Bafana Bafana coach, from R10 million to 20 “bars” depending on which report you trust, but I fully agree with patriotic veteran Clive Barker that the former midfield star should have been fired last October already by the big men up in Egoli.

And we all know what happened in October at Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit.

Safa, against the wishes of some critics, forgave Mosimane for making us the laughing stock of the football world by miscalculating Bafana’s qualification for the 2012 African Nations’ Cup finals, so why can’t the former SuperSport coach now also practise humility and go gently into the night, considering he never won a game since Mbombela?

He went seven matches without victory – nine if you add the two makeshift assignments in January – but clearly he feels he deserves a huge payout if he has brought his lawyers into play.

It is going to be interesting to see how the case unfolds, but it is obvious Safa will have to think more carefully about compensation clauses and what rights they wish to reserve in the next man’s contract, because coaches simply don’t see out their terms anymore.

This is especially so when they have to guide footballers who are less than world class because of Safa’s own lack of development schemes.

President Kirsten Nematandani, chief executive Robin Petersen and company need to protect the national governing body’s big post-2010 chequebook by cleverly de- signing clauses that would require less and less compensation to be paid at different stages of a coach’s tenure in relation to goals set out right at the beginning.

In other words, they should attempt to give themselves the right to consider releasing a coach not only when he has failed to qualify for a major tournament but also when he has recorded certain negative sequences of results.

Mosimane would have been guilty on both these counts, and consecutively.

So how much does he deserve now? Certainly nothing close to R10m.

Of course, everybody is also busy offering opinions on whether Gordon Igesund, Gavin Hunt or Steve Komphela should be appointed to replace Jingles.

The way I see it again is Igesund is like that popular white Corolla from the car rental company. It is made in Durban and is far from pretty, but also far from breaking down. The same could be said of “Huntie”.

Komphela is like a red Etios – right colour, newer design, but still to be proved reliable on long journeys.

Choices, choices, choices ....but if the Safa bigwigs, who are not known for technical expertise, are somehow found to be straying unnecessarily on the exotic side like times in the past, then the local candidates might want to remind them that on the dusty farm of South African football there is no need for a luxurious M-Class from Stuttgart when a rugged Fortuner from our backyard in Prospecton might be far more suitable at half the price.