Broos has some time

Hugo Broos (above) will have a few more months to prepare Bafana Bafana for the 2022 Fifa World Cup qualifiers, after the Confederation of African Football (Caf) announced yesterday that they had taken the decision to postpone the June qualifiers. to September.

“The Caf Emergency Committee, in consultation with Fifa, decided to postpone the Caf qualifiers for the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022 that were due to be played in June 2021, after taking into consideration the current challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the need to ensure the optimal playing conditions for all participating teams,” read a statement from Caf.

“The qualifiers will now take place in the existing windows of September, October and November 2021, and March 2022.

“Caf is reassessing its protocols and processes to enhance the implementation of Covid-19 related protocols, including specifically focusing on prematch testing, which had been the source of some challenges in previous windows.

“Full details on the updated match schedule will be provided in due course.”

This decision has to be good news for Broos, who was only appointed as Bafana head coach on Wednesday and will arrive next week.

It remains to be seen if the South African Football Association (Safa) will now organise friendlies in June, in place of the qualifiers.

Safa, meanwhile, announced yesterday that they had now reached an agreement to officially part ways with Molefi Ntseki, over a month after they announced his sacking for failing to qualify Bafana for next year’s Afcon.

With two years left on his contract, there were clearly still some issues to iron out, and Safa said yesterday in a statement: “Safa together with coach Molefi Ntseki have officially agreed to part ways amicably, following the senior national team’s failure to qualify for the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon).”