Bafana coach Broos slams PSL for stretching fixtures to eve of Afcon
Outspoken Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos has taken another swipe at the Premier Soccer League (PSL) for not heeding his call to break the current campaign before Christmas.
The league's fixtures will run until December 30 before the New Year's and Africa Cup of Nations break but Broos said he asked the PSL to cut play off on December 23 so players could have time off before the start of the Afcon in Ivory Coast.
The Nations Cup starts on January 13 and Broos said players, especially from teams that took part in the MTN8, will not have had enough time to rest ahead of the tournament.
“The players for some of the big teams would have started playing at the beginning of August, this means they will have played many games,” he said as Bafana prepared to take on Eswatini in their international friendly at FNB Stadium on Friday (6pm).
“It would have been very good for those players to get six to seven days off if the PSL was going to be stopped on the 23rd as I requested at the end of last season. I didn’t wait for two days — immediately after the end of last season we sent the letter asking them to stop the PSL on the 23rd.
“The reason is to give the players some time off for six to seven days. Did they read the letter? I don’t know. They ignored it. When the programme came out, the first thing I checked was when the league was going to stop.”
Broos, who has launched a number of verbal attacks on the PSL in the past, said there needs to be improved collaboration and communication between the league and the national team.
“When I saw the December 30 and 31 [for the last games before the break], I said OK but I was not expecting something different because it doesn’t interest them. They just don’t want to give you a good opportunity and a good environment to prepare the team.
“I was in Cameroon two weeks [in Broos's tenure as head of their national team, with whom he won the 2017 Nations Cup] and I asked for a meeting with the coaches and they were all there. Here I have asked already four times [for such a meeting in South Africa]; and I am not blaming the coaches, but it was postponed by the PSL.
“You ask the PSL to stop the league one week earlier to give the players off [and it didn’t happen]. I just had to flip my finger in Cameroon and I got everything I wanted.
“We went to Equatorial Guinea with the Cameroon team manager to prepare for Afcon and there was no problem. We went there for a few days to sort out accommodation, training grounds and everything but here it is totally different.”
After their game against Eswatini, Bafana meet Ivory Coast in this month's second friendly in that country on Tuesday.