Bafana due for a new coach!

Time for a new Bafana Bafana coach. Again. Time for the South African Football Association (Safa) to call a meeting, then decide to set up a committee to interview candidates for the job of coach of South Africa, which of course will need them to organise a task team to look into who should make up that committee.

In turn they will have to convene another board meeting to establish the policy, guidelines and payment schedule for the task team to look into who should make up the committee that will interview candidates for the job as coach of South Africa.





Then a sub-committee must be formed to outline the job requirements for the new coach, but only after the task team to look into who should be on the committee to interview candidates for the Bafana job has reported to Safa's board.

And that, only after the board has found time to convene the meeting, which may have to be delayed once the in-fighting at Safa lifts to Nigerian parliamentary levels as said interested parties, board members and paid employees begin circling the $100-million pot that is expected to be coming their way after the World Cup. Flies. Huge, attractive pile of dog pooh. Vultures. Carcass. Safa. Make a sentence.

Safa were all over the radio on Wednesday making noises about realising they had been neglecting development all these years. It should hardly have come as a shock. Practically every football commentator and more than a few coaches have bitched about how South African football is held together with spit, sticky tape and a veneer of responsibility.

At Safa the number one skill is not the betterment of football, but the deflection of blame.

National team going down the toilet? Fire the coach. Judicial inquiry into dodgy dealings at Safa? Fire the coach. People asking about huge commissions and "marketing consultants"? Fire the coach.

Worried about the government? Remind them you are hosting the World Cup and how Fifa really, really hate it when governments get involved in their affiliates affairs.

We still await word from the portfolio committee on Bafana's performance at Loftus against Uruguay. Even the Yoof League had nothing to say about bloody bastard agents.

So, who will be the new coach? Gavin Hunt seems the obvious choice, but Safa seldom do the obvious. Remember when they appointed Jeff Butler, only to find a few things about his CV didn't make sense? Pitso Mosimane? Also a good option as he understands local players. Well, he has to. South Africa have few who play abroad.

A quick scan through Bafana coaches shows Safa have been content to settle for whatever they can get.

Butler, then Stanley "Screamer" Tshabalala, who slapped a journalist and was fired after a few months; Ephrahim "Shakes" Mashaba lasted a game, Augusto Palacios of Peru became the fourth Bafana coach in the first eight months after isolation.

Then came Clive Barker, popular and successful, who won things, which was obviously too much for Safa, as they chopped him just before the 1998 World Cup, one of the greatest travesties in local sport. Safa have never apologised for that.

Phillipe Troussier took Bafana to France in 1998, then Jomo Sono took over. Troussier did great things with Japan in 2002.

Carlos Queiroz was not good enough to coach South Africa, but good enough for Manchester United, Real Madrid and Portugal. He left when Sono got all huffy and wanted to take over again.

The list continues with Stuart Baxter, Trott Moloto, Shakes Mashaba, Ted Dumitru, Styles Phumo, Carlos Alberto Parreira, Joel Natalino Santana and Parreira again.

One hopes the sub-committee to outline the job requirements for the new national coach, which can only be formed after the task team to look into who should be on the committee to interview candidates for the Bafana job reports to the Safa board - deep breath - will take into account just how silly they have been with coaches in the past.