I hear the noise about Banyana Banyana and money, and I’m 100% behind it. But the noise I’d prefer to hear more , is how we can capitalise on this moment and have more women playing the beautiful game in our country.
The moment I’m talking about is Banyana being crowned African champions after winning the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) by beating hosts Morocco 2-1 in Rabat at the weekend.
The noise I would prefer to hear, is how we’re going to prepare Banyana for next year’s Fifa Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, so that we avoid being the African champions who can’t go beyond the first round. That would be a huge embarrassment.
Make no mistake, the money issue is huge. I have no doubt it needs to be tackled, and I was the one, on this platform, who said Safa president Danny Jordaan must be held accountable for the promise he made to the Banyana players before Wafcon got under way.
So yes, I’m very happy to see everyone is now asking how much Banyana are being paid, and some people are even calling for players to be paid more than the R400,000 they were each promised. But we need to quickly move on from that and start preparing this team for next year’s World Cup.
We also need to see the benefits of Banyana winning the Wafcon filtering down to every school in the country, be it private or public, where young girls should be encouraged to take up football.
Safa should also do more to grow the sport at a grassroots level because that’s the only way we can produce world-class players. We need to groom Banyana players while they’re young. This means all the coaches kicking their heels at home without a job, that Safa have been developing over the years, should be roped in to coach women’s teams.
What we shouldn’t forget, is that we’re still miles away from closing the gap between ourselves and other top women’s footballing nations. Asia, South America and Europe are far ahead of us, and for us to get to their level we need to strengthen our development structures.
Where Banyana are ranked in the world tells us of the magnitude of the job that needs to be done. Banyana are 58th in the world and have been to two Olympics where they bombed out in the first round.
Banyana were at the London Olympics in 2012 and Rio in 2016, where they never won a game in six matches, in which four ended in losses and two were drawn, with 10 goals scored against them and one for them.
It would be a great pity if we are to look back in five years time and find that we never capitalised on Banyana being crowned African champions. By 2027 we should be proud of saying SA has a professional women’s league, where professional players are paid decent salaries.
It was the same story when Banyana qualified for their maiden World Cup in France in 2019. Three games were lost by the SA team, including the 3-1 defeat against Spain where Banyana took the lead via Thembi Kgatlana’s early goal but ended losing after conceding two goals in the last 10 minutes.
What all of this tells us is that Desiree Ellis and her team must cut their celebrations short and start preparing for the World Cup. The issue of how much the players are being paid should not be dragged into the World Cup preparation because if we do that, we’ll lose focus and our participation could end up being a big embarrassment.
Banyana’s victory in Morocco calls for investment in women’s football. It calls for the professionalisation of the game in SA. But all of that can’t happen if we don’t have enough quality players playing the game.
For the fans to come to the games it means we must have competitive teams, not just one or two teams, but a league with 16 or more teams that are capable of producing players for the national side.
What has helped Banyana, especially in the past five years, is the number of SA players plying their trade abroad. When these players are overseas they focus on nothing but playing the game. The same should happen in our country, but we’ll reach that level when we’ve developed enough good players to play in the local teams.
What we have at the moment is an amateur league run by Safa. This league has helped unearth a number of players who are now shining for the country. But we have to admit the standard could be better.
When we talk about the investment in the women’s game, it should not only be about the salaries that everyone says Banyana players deserve. We need to develop world-class players who play in professional leagues before we talk about parity between what we pay male professional footballers players and women playing football.
It would be a great pity if we are to look back in five years time and find that we never capitalised on Banyana being crowned African champions. By 2027 we should be proud of saying SA has a professional women’s league, where professional players are paid decent salaries.
This can only happen if everyone embraces the game, both the rich and poor of this country. Once we do that, Banyana won’t have just one white player representing the country but people of every colour will be part of our national team.
Next year’s World Cup presents another opportunity for Ellis and her team to show everyone how women’s football has grown in the country. We have a year to prepare for the global showpiece and no day should be wasted, given where our team is right now.
A tour around the world, where Banyana can test themselves against teams ranked well ahead of them, should be a start. A camp no less than a month before the tournament will also help our team.
The issue of what the players will get for their participation in the World Cup should also be sorted out months ahead of the tournament, because you don’t want these distractions for the players. Banyana will stand a better chance of advancing to the second round in next year’s tournament given that the number of teams participating has been expanded from 24 to 32.
Good preparation should see Banyana move up the rankings before next year’s tournament. But it will depend on what we do from now on. What I know is that we can’t waste time debating how much we should pay our players for winning the Wafcon. The priority should be how much we invest in developing the game in the country.
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