This could be Petersen's zero to hero moment

GOOD gracious me, am I really mentioning honesty and the Safa hierarchy in one sentence? Perhaps the world as we know it is really coming to an end this month.

Maybe it is the last time you're reading this column. Armageddon is nigh. I don't need to check my tongue cause I ain't saying this tongue-in-cheek. Something stranger than fiction happened this week that confirms the apocalypse is approaching.

Safa president Kirsten Nematandani and Robin Petersen made a frank admission to colleagues Mazola Molefe and Marc Strydom.

With no guns held to their temples, the Safa president and his CEO admitted something we've always known - they have done nothing to lift our football from the doldrums they and previous administrations have dumped it in.

In not so many words, Nematandani admitted he had been a talking head not dissimilar to SABC1 continuity presenters of yesteryear. Remember "Simunye, oh we are one."? The hot air spewing from his mouth has been hotter than the Kalahari desert breeze. But the frank admission is edifying and it's gratifying to note that Nematandani has been shaken from his somnambulistic state. For the first time in its history, Safa will treat development as seriously as a heart attack.

Petersen will step aside to drive the Safa Development Agency, which will see the implementation of the organisation's Technical Master Plan.

In a nutshell, all of Safa's 52 regions will have academies. Each of SA's nine provinces will have an academy. There will be two national academies, one each for men's and women's football.

It is an ambitious plan projected to cost between R200-million and R300-million a year. This is where the millions in the World Cup Trust Fund come in. Rather syphoning those millions into some people's pockets, let us, for once, plough football money back into the game.

This is the best news since South Africa was awarded the right to stage the World Cup.

But Safa have spoken beautifully before and acted horrendously after. They are good at giving blacks a bad name - that all we are good at is fighting for positions and plundering.

It is often said there are only two things blacks really own in this country: football and the taxi industry.

The taxi industry was once a battlefield of blood-letting. Things are much calmer now. Likewise in football. The death of Ewert "The Lip" Nene over the signing of Teenage Dladla to Kaizer Chiefs didn't have to happen. The split of Moroka Swallows led to the unnecessary killing of Aaron "Roadblock" Makhathini. We watched in horror when several men stabbed China Hlongwane as though he was a belligerent beast at Ellis Park live on television during a split that threatened to send Orlando Pirates into oblivion.

It shows the maturity of the local game that Chiefs and Pirates supporters can coexist nowadays as opposed to the bygone era when hatred coursed through the veins of the two sets of fans.

Now we need Safa to behave like the custodians of the game that they are. No more lip service, Nematandani.

For Petersen, this could turn out to be a personal coup, his zero-to-hero moment.

Many think of the Ellis Park disaster when the former PSL CEO's name is mentioned. More will mention him in the same sentence as excellence when SA becomes a global powerhouse of the game. Safa owes the nation that legacy.