South African Football Association (Safa) technical committee member Benni McCarthy dropped a bombshell on Tuesday and revealed he is as much in the dark as the rest of the country in regards to the search for a new Bafana Bafana coach.
McCarthy's revelation will come as a huge shock to millions of South Africans as the former Bafana Bafana striker is supposed to be a member of a team that was tasked with finding the new man.
“I thought I was part of a group that was doing good to find the new coach for Bafana but I simply just don’t know what has happened‚" a candid McCarthy said on Tuesday.
"What has stalled the process and this situation is a major bummer.
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"There were good candidates and I was expecting that by now there would be a coach.
"But clearly there is a hold up somewhere which I don’t have any knowledge of what is the reason behind it.
"I am in the same boat as you guys in the media.
"It’s unfortunate that everything has come to a standstill and I don’t know what is going on.”
Bafana have been been without a coach since Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba's sacking in December last year.
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The new coach will have to hit the ground running as Bafana have a daunting away African Nations Cup qualifier against Nigeria next month.
“It is a major setback that we have a huge match against Nigeria in a few weeks time and we don’t have a coach‚" the revered former Orlando Pirates and Porto player said.
"There is uncertainty because we don’t know if (caretaker coach) Owen Da Gama is going to take the team forward or there is going to be a new coach by that time Bafana play (next month's qualifier).
"It is very confusing for the players because they were expecting the new coach to be watching them by now.
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"We are in the back end of the season where many teams are fighting to win the league.
"Some are fighting for top eight and some are trying to avoid relegation and there is no coach watching all these interesting matches.
"To be honest‚ this is a major bummer and I just hope that it gets resolved as soon as possible.
“I am a South African and I want to see my national team do well which is something that they have not done in a while.
"Since we hosted the World Cup in 2010‚ we have not qualified for anything important.
"I want things to be resolved so that we have a coach in place to allow him to get down to business‚ start to watch the players‚ put his team together and come up with a plan for helping us to qualify for Russia.
- 'We’ve got to play on Thursday again‚ Pirates didn’t play,' says Wits coach Gavin HuntBidvest Wits’ tactic of packing their midfield with ball winners Granwald Scott‚ Ben Motswari and Thabang Monare paid off as they stifled Mamelodi Sundowns in a 1-0 Absa Premiership win on Tuesday night.
"We wanted someone who was going to bring change to the national team and invest in the youth by ensuring that the Under17 boys graduate through the levels to the senior national team and have continuation of players just like I did.”
Several names have been linked to the job but Safa does not appear to be any closer to ending the long-running debacle.
- TMG Digital/TMG Sport
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