Bafana to be rewarded for their mediocre Chan display

ALTHOUGH Bafana Bafana were booted out early from the African Nations Championship, they will still be rewarded handsomely for their third-place finish.

The Bafana players will share about R1.4-million for finishing third in Group A behind second-placed Nigeria and leaders Mali, the Local Organising Committee (LOC) confirmed yesterday.

Sipho Sithole, LOC chief communications and marketing officer, confirmed that all the teams that participated in the Chan tournament – a competition for quasi-national teams made up of home-based players – will get prize money.

The winners will add about R8-million into their bank account, while runners-up will pocket about R4.3-million.

The teams that will square up for the third and fourth playoffs will get R2.7-million each. The quarterfinals losers will receive R1.9-million each, while the third finishers in each group will claim R1.4million each.

The teams that will finish fourth in each group will walk away with R1-million apiece.

The total prize money for the tournament is over R35million. “This tournament is growing by leaps and bounds and needs to be profiled and celebrated,” Sithole told Sowetan last night.

“We are not calling this tournament ‘ Africa’s Home Champions ’ for nothing. We have indeed the continent’s best players taking part in the tournament on our home soil and we are grateful about that. They deserve the best in terms of facilities, resources and financial reward. Let’s go to the stadium in numbers to make this tournament a memorable event. Let’s show the continent we have passion for the beautiful game,” he said.