The South African Football Association (Safa) will not name a technical director tomorrow as originally planned after deciding that the announcement of a new Bafana Bafana coach would be enough excitement for one day.
Safa was to reveal the names of both men after its executive committee meeting at Safa House but changed the plan when increasingly divisive debate over who should be Bafana coach threatened to get out of hand.
Safa president Danny Jordaan said yesterday that the unveiling of the new coach's identity is likely to be greeted by furious debate and the possibility of further controversy over the choice of technical director would be unwelcome.
''If both names [the Bafana coach and the technical director] go out there and people are not happy, that could create havoc," Jordaan said. "There is too much pressure on the announcement of the new coach and we would rather focus on that for now."
Nigerian Stephen Keshi, Dutchman Frank Rijkaard and South African under-23 coach Ephraim Mashaba are believed to be the frontrunners in the race for the Bafana job.
Former coach Carlos Queiroz seemingly dropped out of the race after Iran's media reported at the weekend that he is negotiating a contract extension in that country up until the 2018 World Cup.
But, given the many twists and turns that have been the hallmark of this Safa search for a coach, even Queiroz cannot be completely ruled out of the race.
He seemingly left the door open to Safa when he was quoted as saying that he would only finalise negotiations with the Iranian Football Federation on August 1.
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