Controversial Portuguese coach Paulo Duarte, who was stinging in his criticism of arrangements last year when he brought his Burkina Faso side to play Bafana Bafana in a friendly, is headed back to local shores this week.

He is now the coach of Gabon, who play Bafana Bafana in a friendly international in Nelspruit on Friday night.

Duarte blamed the South African Football Association for his team's 3-0 defeat by South Africa last August - the last time Bafana won a game.

At the time, he claimed Safa had been lax in getting visas for his players, although it later turned out his own officials should have done that.

He also said flights were disorganised and that his top players did not want to travel the long distance from Europe to South Africa for the match.

Safa later hit back with a detailed explanation of arrangements which highlighted numerous changes that the Burkinabe made to flight arrangements. and said most of their European-based players whom Duarte had asked Safa to buy tickets for, did not bother to pick up the tickets.

"The Burkina Faso head of delegation and the coach contradicted each other on every aspect of the arrangements. We express our disappointment with the behaviour of the coach after we had established a healthy relationship with our sister federation," the Safa statement said.

South Africa reportedly paid around R500000 to arrange last August's friendly.

Duarte was subsequently fired by Burkina Faso and took the helm with Gabon, who beat his former side 1-0 in a World Cup qualifier on Saturday.

Asked if Safa would talk to Duarte this time round about his behaviour, CEO Robin Petersen said: "We'll leave that for you guys in the press to bring up."