Banyana Banyana will play in the Turkish Women’s Cup which is scheduled to start on Wednesday (February 15-23) in Alanya, after the SA Football Association (Safa) announced that the team was set to leave on Tuesday night.
The team’s departure was delayed by a series of meetings where Safa officials were still discussing whether to send the women's senior national side after hosts Turkey pulled out of the tournament following an earthquake that hit some parts of Turkey and Syria last Monday.
“Safa consulted widely before allowing Banyana to travel to Turkey,” Safa said in a statement on Tuesday.
Coach Desiree Ellis left with 16 locally-based players and will be joined by seven more who are based in Europe before they play their first match against Uzbekistan on Saturday.
The tournament in Alanya, 400km from areas affected by the quake, will involve SA, Zambia and eight other nations — Bulgaria, Estonia, Kosovo, Hong Kong, Jordan, North Macedonia, Slovenia and Uzbekistan.
TimesLIVE has learnt that Banyana players and technical team are “very reluctant to go” following last week’s earthquake, whose death toll on Tuesday night was at over 31,000 people in Turkey and 5,800 people in Syria.
Ellis will use the tournament in Turkey as part of Banyana’s preparation for this year’s Women’s Fifa World Cup in New Zealand and Australia, where the African champions will face Sweden, Italy and Argentina.
TimesLIVE
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