If the powers that be don’t love SA we will watch Chan from home again: Safa technical director

South African Football Association (Safa) technical director Walter Steenbok says lack of co-operation and passion for football from the game’s administrators is one of the reasons Bafana Bafana fails to qualify for tournaments.

South Africa last year recently failed to qualify for the African Nations Championship (Chan) for locally-based continental squads, which concluded in Algeria on Saturday.

Senegal defeated the hosts on penalties to lift their first Chan trophy.

A hastily-assembled Bafana were humiliated in a 6-1 aggregate defeat by Angola in the qualifiers in September.

SA could not pick the best available players in the Premier Soccer League (PSL) as the tournament falls out of the Fifa calendar.

Steenbok believes South Africa could benefit from playing in tournaments such as Chan as many players in the PSL lack international football experience.

The well-documented lack of co-operation between the league and Safa has been blamed for this on a number of occasions.

“The Chan qualifiers are pencilled for July. It’s going to be in the middle of the preseason. Normally, the National First Division [Motespe Foundation Championship] starts around September, but we are going to have the same problem.

“If we don’t resolve this, we will watch Chan again on TV and the media will make a noise again that ‘Safa is not qualifying, this and that’. But our problems are there,” Steenbok said during Wednesday’s media launch of an Under-15 Interprovincial tournament at the Safa headquarters in Nasrec.

“If we have a calendar that is not synchronised, and that calendar doesn’t favour national teams, we are still going to have problems.

“So, how much do we love this country and football? That’s the question.”

Steenbok said even if the Chan does not fall under the Fifa calendar, the PSL and Safa should be able to reach a decision that will benefit the country’s football.

“If the powers that be don’t love this country, we are going to watch from the comfort of our homes. It’s going to happen again,” he said.

“The qualifiers are in July and we know the programme. We are going to write letters, we are going to ask for programmes and fixtures to be shifted, but is it going to happen?

“We will confirm the fixtures. Is it possible for the PSL to allow us to select the players to be able to play in the Chan tournament?”

Steenbok’s sentiments were supported by Safa vice-president Linda Zwane.

“Safa is the custodian of football in this country and Safa must deal with that matter,” he said.

“Whether the relationship is sour, it’s South Africa that comes first more than anything. Our responsibility as the national executive committee is to legislate and look at all the things that are taking the country backwards, so we move forward.

“I don’t think we have the luxury of crying foul. We need to do what we can so that this can be resolved in the interests of South Africa.

“Part of what we must do is to stop ‘If I’m happy I will release a player; and tomorrow, if I’m not happy I withdraw the player’. It can’t be.”

The U-15 Interprovincial tournament is a pilot project of the Fifa Talent Development Scheme (TDS) and the international body has picked SA as one of the countries to run it.

The tournament will be held in July where the nine provincial teams will play against invited academies with the aim of selecting the next batch of U-17 national team players.

“The main idea around this tournament is to bring the talent we have to one main area, and have them showcased under the Talent Development Scheme,” Steenbok said.

Fifa TDS coach Dean Selvey has been assigned to SA and will spend the next six months working with Safa on the project.