Safa pledges to find more talent for Bafana in Europe
SA joins rest of Africa on route to naturalisation
The SA Football Association (Safa ) has intensified its drive to recruit European-based players with Mzansi roots, following in the footsteps of the continent’s giants like Senegal, Ghana, Morocco and Tunisia, who are hugely boosted by naturalised players.
In 2014, the Moroccan FA launched an intensive naturalisation process to “bring back talents belonging to the soil”.
Senegal, Ghana, Tunisia and Morocco are currently participating in the World Cup in Qatar, where a sizable percentage of their squads is made up of naturalised citizens.
Senegal skipper Kalidou Koulibaly is a prime example of this as he was born in France to Senegalese parents, while Moroccan ace Achraf Hakimi was born in Spain, representing the Atlas Lions because his parents are from Morocco.
Speaking to Sowetan yesterday, Safa president Danny Jordaan revealed plans were afoot for SA to naturalise European talents with SA links.
“More than 66% players in the African teams at the World Cup are not nationals of those countries,” Jordaan said.
“The naturalisation of players is happening in international sport. Even in cricket, how many SA-born players are playing for England?
“[Cricketer] Ben Stokes was born in Australia but is playing for England.
“We are also determined to lure some great talent to play for Bafana.”
One of Jordaan ’ s deputies, Bennet Bailey, is at the forefront of this operation. Bailey confirmed they had already helped budding Dutch striker Simon van Duivembooden with the process of dual citizenship, hence he’ll be eligible to play for Bafana.
The highly-rated 20-yearold, who is the property of Eredivisie club Vitesse, was born in the Netherlands to South African parents and has never played for any national team.
“At this moment we are busy helping two players change their citizenships. The one is Simon, who’s based in the Netherlands and the other one I don’t have his details yet.
“With Simon, his things are in now (meaning his documents are being processed),” Bailey explained.
“It’s now up to the department of home affairs [to decide if they accept or decline the application].
“We are also looking at having a meeting with the department itself because we want to tell them that our plan is to strengthen the pool of players who will play for Bafana.”
In the past, Bafana did find some players in Europe with SA heritage, such as Pierre Issa, Davide Somma, Matty Pattison and Ricardo Nunes.
We’re keen on luring talent for Bafana