SAFA WHISTLING IN THE WIND
‘Queiroz not looking for a job’
● The SA Football Association (Safa) is under pressure to finalise the appointment of a coach for Bafana Bafana with just six weeks until they kick off their qualifying campaign for the 2022 Fifa World Cup.
For all that Carlos Queiroz was said to be announced as Molefi Ntseki's successor yesterday, it emerged that the former Portugal coach is not interested in the job.
Queiroz, 68, who was linked with the Bafana job alongside Belgian Hugo Broos and Frenchman Herve Renard, was set to be announced by Safa yesterday. He was to take over from Ntseki, who was fired by Safa last month after failing to qualify the team for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations.
“The coach [Queiroz] is not available,” a high-ranking Safa official told the Sunday Times yesterday morning, adding that Queiroz was not looking for a job.
Not available
“There was not even negotiation over financial issues, he was just not available.”
Safa’s technical committee headed by Safa NEC member Jack Maluleka had recommended Queiroz as they believed he ticked all the boxes, having coached the national team (2000-2002) and qualified them for the 2002 Fifa World Cup.
Safa president Danny Jordaan was also behind the technical committee’s recommendation and is a known admirer of the former Real Madrid and Manchester United tactician who snubbed Safa when they thought they had him as he is currently not coaching any team.
Jordaan wanted Queiroz to come back as Bafana coach in 2017 after he had a fallout with then coach Shakes Mashaba.
The Briton Stuart Baxter eventually took over from Mashaba after being handpicked by the Safa president.
With Queiroz having refused Safa’s advances, Safa communications manager Dominic Chimhavi said the NEC yesterday mandated the organisation’s CEO Tebogo Motlanthe “to finalise the issue (of getting the coach) in the coming days”.
Chimhavi could not divulge how the talks with Queiroz went or whether he was still in line to get the job, but two sources who attended yesterday’s NEC meeting confirmed to the Sunday Times that the former Colombia coach was now out of the picture.
This may leave Broos, who won the 2017 Afcon with Cameroon, as an option — if he agrees terms.
With Bafana beginning their 2022 World Cup qualifying campaign away to neighbours Zimbabwe in the first week of June, Safa is pressed for time.
The Sunday Times understands that among the reasons Queiroz fell through was because of the salary package he may have demanded and the mandate that he qualify the team for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
SA legend Jomo Sono
Queiroz, who spends his time between Johannesburg and Portugal, was demoted by Safa in 2002 on the eve of the World Cup, his job being given to SA legend Jomo Sono.
Of the foreign coaches linked to the Bafana job, Queiroz was the only one familiar with SA football’s problems, even if he wasn’t in a position to solve any of them.
Jordaan said last week that he had told his technical committee to find the new coach and should “not worry about the money”. Jordaan didn’t reveal where Safa, which has experienced financial problems in recent times, would get the money.
Safa’s latest financial statements showed a surplus of more than R60m, but that would seem like small change compared to the R40m a year that Queiroz was reported to have asked for in 2017.