SA under-23 coach Owen da Gama and his under-20 counterpart Thabo Senong are also set to be shown the door after suspended Bafana Bafana mentor Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba’s expected sacking this week.
The two junior national team coaches also double as Mashaba’s assistants at Bafana level and they are expected to follow their boss out the exit door.
The suspended Mashaba is set to be fired this week after appearing before the South African Football Association’s (Safa) disciplinary committee on Tuesday.
Times Media Digital has learnt that under-17 coach Molefi Ntseki is the only national team coach who will escape the guillotine in the clearout.
Da Gama and Senong’s contracts are linked to Mashaba’s agreement with Safa.
Da Gama – who took charge of Bafana on an interim basis in the friendly international against Mozambique on Tuesday following Mashaba’s suspension - will not have helped his own chances of survival after he pledged allegiance to Mashaba.
He said he hoped that Mashaba would be restored back to his position after his suspension.
“Continuity always favours whatever you are in‚” Da Gama was quoted as saying.
“So we would hope for continuity and not change things a lot. If a new coach comes in‚ he could change everything and that could be more uncertain than continuity.
“We just have to wait and see what happens. We do not know what lies in store for us as well.”
Mashaba’s dismissal appears to be a mere formality and the two parties are set to part ways 28 months into a contract that was supposed to end after the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Recordings of his many skirmishes with the media will be used against him in his disciplinary hearing.
The video clip of South African Football Association (Safa) communications official Mahlomola Morake and SABC journalist Kwena Moabelo desperately trying to calm down a visibly seething Mashaba will now come back to haunt him.
The video clip went viral on social media and it will also be presented in his disciplinary hearing.
Mashaba was suspended last week after he furiously wagged his finger at senior Safa officials - who included president Danny Jordaan‚ CEO Dennis Mumble‚ national executive committee members and other Safa employees - after Bafana beat Senegal 2-1 in a 2018 World Cup qualifier at the Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane last Saturday.
He accused them all of not supporting him in a rant that spilt over to a scheduled SABC television interview that had to be delayed for several minutes to give the enraged Bafana mentor time to calm down.
Mashaba’s utterances after Bafana arrived in Durban in October to face Ghana in a friendly international also infuriated his employers to no end.
Bafana had played a 2018 World Cup qualifier against Burkina Faso a couple of days earlier and Mashaba was not amused that his team was not afforded a charter plane from Ouagadougou to Durban.
“We are not getting support‚” he was quoted as saying at the time.
“If I take everyone back to the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers‚ the reason we qualified is that we travelled on charter flights for all the games.
“Now we arrive a day before the game from Burkina Faso. No training‚ nothing….. Yet people expect the boys to run and win?”
The comments put his employers in a tough spot as the charter flights he was referring to were hired in the months before Safa entered into a partnership with South African Airways‚ who actually flew Bafana to Durban.
Mamelodi Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane‚ former Ajax Cape Town mentor Roger de Sa and Cape Town City’s Eric Tinkler have emerged as strong contenders to take over one of the toughest seats in South African sport. – TMG Digital
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