It’s a big week for SA football, yet those who’re supposed to make noise, ensuring that everyone is aware of what’s happening, have gone to the ground. This is how the SA Football Association (Safa) rolls these days, they look increasingly ashamed to promote their own biggest jewels: Bafana Bafana and SA Under-23s, the two teams who are playing crucial home qualifiers this week.
No wonder there are so few South Africans who know the line-ups or players who make the squads of these teams by heart. But when you have a national team manager “forgetting” to book a training venue for Bafana, you may understand how much the association values them.
This is in contrast to the late 1990s when no-one needed to advertise a Bafana or an Under-23 fixture. And it did not matter whether it was a friendly or an official match. People just knew they had to get behind these sides, and those who were not at the stadium would be glued to their television screens whenever the matches were being shown live.
Knowing how they’ve contributed to lowering the standards and interests in these teams, this week Safa decided that a crucial 2024 Olympic qualifier that the Under-23s will play against Congo will be watched free of charge on Thursday at the Dobsonville Stadium in the heart of Soweto. Yes, in Soweto, our mostly densely populated township, especially associated with football.
And as if the Under-23 match bonanza was not enough, a R40 ticket will get anyone who’s interested in watching Bafana battling it out against Liberia a seat at the Orlando Stadium on Friday. The two teams are fighting for a place in the delayed 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast early next year.
These matches deserve much bigger marketing than they’ve received from Safa, who still rely on the press releases, hoping to get people’s awareness about national teams’ games.
Fans need to know what kind of entertainment is added to the game, security and safe parking issues are a must, while refreshments and even ablution facilities must be of acceptable standards for people to leave the comfort of their homes.
In the late 1990s there was not much that Bafana was competing with. There was no social media where people could get live updates on matches, no live streaming and not the many forms of entertainment people have these days. It is precisely this reason that you would have thought an organisation like Safa would constantly share notes with their counterparts at Saru on how they still get fans to all the Springboks’ games.
CSA had the most successful and well-attended T20 tournament early this year, and I’m sure it wouldn’t have hurt Safa to ask how they pulled it off. Safa is still stuck in the past, where they hope that bringing in star players like Percy Tau to be part of Bafana will automatically draw fans to the stadiums.
Other than football, which is also awful these days, people want more when they head to the stadium. It’s people’s money and their precious time that you’re trying to win. Fans need to know what kind of entertainment is added to the game, security and safe parking issues are a must, while refreshments and even ablution facilities must be of acceptable standards for people to leave the comfort of their homes. These are some of the things that people handling our football have ignored, and if even there are positives brought by having star players in the Bafana team, nobody bothers to sell them properly and the whole game to the public.
That a ticket to watch Bafana is so cheap (even some PSL matches cost R100 these days) tells us how Safa values their team. They know they haven’t done anything tangible to get close to charging the kind of money that people pay to watch the Springboks. For historical and social reasons, of course those watching football can’t afford to pay what the staunch Springbok supporters can afford, but if Safa constantly marketed Bafana, they would at least attract as many people to their game and get close to upping their price.
The secrecy with which the game is run; the unaccountability of those running SA football; and of course, the poor development of our players and that we have no players in some of the big leagues in the world, are some of the biggest turn-offs.
It goes without saying that Safa’s marketing schemes should be top notch. That no-one at Safa seems to care how many people watch our national teams should raise alarm bells about the sort of football leadership we have. If Safa doesn’t care about Bafana, how do we think they’ll market anything below them. They’d obviously not bother; hence they decided the Under-23 team will be watched free of charge by those who will somehow remember they’re playing a crucial qualifier against Congo in Soweto on Thursday.
A massive brand like Bafana being undervalued shows we have the wrong people running our football, people who have no interest or confidence in selling their own prime products.
The day South Africans we wake up and realise we need a Safa with people who have the ideas and energy to take our national teams seriously, is when we’ll demand changes. For now, we shouldn’t expect bums on the seats because we’ve left our football in the hands of those whose interest is somewhere else other than football.
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