Bosses basking in being second rate
“IF you go to university and the requirement is to pass, but you fail, what more is there to say?”
This was Danny Jordaan’s cut-tothe-chase response to questions as to why Gordon Igesund’s two-year tenure as Bafana Bafana coach will not be extended when it expires at the end of August.
There’s been an outlandish outcry by some who chose to be economical with the truth about why Safa have fired him when he’s done so well. Here’s a point of correction to this outrageous and inaccurate accusation: Safa made history in that Igesund is the first coach to finish the course of his tenure, despite dismally failing to deliver on his key deliverables.
You want a recap? Here goes: when his predecessor, Pitso Mosimane, was fired, the public demanded Igesund. The mandarins delivered the people’s choice on a silver platter. They tabled a twin mandate for the chosen one: reach the Afcon 2013 semifinals on home soil and secure Bafana’s seat on the 2014 World Cup Brazil-bound plane.
The open secret is that the people’s choice failed with flying colours. Feel free to ask Thuli Madonsela to investigate if you hold a differing view. She’ll probably title her report: Against shifting the goalposts.
Now, let’s apply Jordaan’s university analogy to Safa by paraphrasing his question: If you’re entrusted with the custody of football in this country, but you fail, what more is there to say?
If Safa were university students they would have long been expelled.
They would have been the lot that organised mind-blowing parties at res (read hosting events) and stage a strike on campus come exam time (read failure to qualify for Afcon and the World Cup).
Yes, our players have no pride in wearing the shirt — their prolonged non-performance confirms this.
Administrators remain the instigators of our troubles. It is never their fault. Never
Losing neither shocks nor visits an ounce of shame for them.
Give the coach the boot when he does not deliver what he promised. Slam the players for heartless, soulless showings. But the administrators remain the instigators of our troubles. It is never their fault. Never.
They resemble the sorry lot that practises revisionist remembering.
Though the PSL and Safa are two sides of the same coin, they don’t sing from the same hymn book when it comes to advancing the national cause. They should be the best duo, yet they’re sold on being soloists. Small wonder our game is out of tune.
Until the big men in ivory towers accept their complicity, a change of fortunes for the better will be but a pipe dream.
Isn’t it common cause that if an alcoholic or addict doesn’t accept he has a problem he will never kick the habit? Or that if they go to rehab reluctantly, the chances of relapse loom larger than large?
Unless our game gets an injection of rehabilitation we will continue watching Ghana going to successive World Cups to perform with admiration.
Their secret to success is not rocket science. Planning — a word Safa deem vulgar— and development are Ghana’s pill to progress.
But you know what? The circus going on in this country is just a sideshow. We should be talking about our chances in the biggest sport spectacle that kicks off on Thursday. Instead, we’re quibbling about a Safa administration seeking to rehire a Carlos Queiroz they fired back in 2002. It seems if your name is Carlos, you’re the man Jordaan thinks can go to university and get the required pass mark.
What more is there to say?