Bafana crisis now needs new tactics

The South African Football Association made history yesterday when it elected a woman as one of its four vice-presidents.

Ria Ledwaba’s election, we hope, is the first of many steps needed to transform the sport into a truly inclusive code that does not discriminate on the basis of gender.

As a vice-president we hope she will champion the struggle to reduce the huge pay gap that exists between female players and male counterparts at various levels.

This responsibility cannot be hers alone. To succeed, she will need the support of the men who continue to dominate the soccer governing body’s structures.

Other than the fact that it is the right thing to do, those who run our football should not find it difficult to help promote and develop the women’s wing of the sport. After all, we stand a greater chance to grow into world beaters through Banyana Banyana than through Bafana Bafana.

The dismal performance by the male national team yesterday, where Bafana failed to beat Madagascar in a Cosafa Cup match, was a perfect reminder of why our boys will be watching the upcoming World Cup in Russia here at home like the rest of us. We may be a soccer-mad nation but we do not fit into the category of World Cup-playing nations.

What is heartbreaking is that the suits who run football haven’t the slightest clue of how to turn things around. Instead of improving South Africa’s standing, soccer officials have been exceptional only in in-fighting, the firing and hiring of coaches at will as well as globe-trotting.

When it became clear that Bafana would not qualify for the World Cup in Russia, there was a lot of talk about this not being a train smash as the long-term plan is to qualify for the 2022 leg of the tournament in Qatar.

But if we are unable to beat Madagascar, a country that would probably never qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations, how are we going to get to Qatar?

The coach and his bosses have run out of ideas as to how to turn around Bafana’s fortunes. Safa needs to convene a soccer indaba of coaches and other experts on how the sport can be developed into an internationally competitive level by 2028. They clearly can’t find solutions on their own.