MARC STRYDOM | Why must Rhuu ‘go on trials’ to qualify for Safa presidency bid?

It’s hard to think of a more colossal figure, internationally, who was birthed by South African football than Lucas Radebe.

Benni McCarthy is one who ranks at the same rarefied height. Jomo Sono, even though he played in the era of isolation, is another, simply because he’s enough of a football giant that his reputation precedes him.

“Rhuu”, in the 1990s and early 2000s, became an African and global football giant. He rubbed shoulders with, competed against and was mentioned with the African luminaries of the time like Jay-Jay Okocha and his Leeds United teammate Tony Yeboah. He is still lovingly remembered in Leeds, where he captained manager David O’Leary’s hugely successful United.

So when such a giant tries to offer his services to run the country’s football it deserves a far better response than the slap-down by the South African Football Association (Safa) he met this week, and when he’s put name his forward before.

“Run” should not be the word, so much as rescue, given the level of underperformance Safa has produced in its chief role of football development. And before the public yells its chorus line of “Danny Jordaan must go!”, it should be reminded that Safa’s dysfunction stems back far further.

The incompetent tenure of president Molefi Oliphant and CEO Raymond Hack in the 2000s, ensuring a pathetic effort to build a Bafana Bafana capable of bringing pride as hosts of the 2010 World Cup, and weak reign of Kirsten Nematandani played their role in the national team’s embarrassing underachievement of the last two decades.

Safa has not got worse under Jordaan. If anything there have been some mild improvements. The organisation of national teams is less chaotic. Bafana have at least started qualifying for (some) Africa Cup of Nations again, and reached quarterfinals in 2013 and 2019. They still don’t compete for the trophy.

Women’s football has flourished, though it would be opportunistic for Jordaan to take credit for Banyana Banyana’s emergence as a continental force and team competitive enough globally to have gone toe-to-toe with big sides reaching the 2023 Women’s World Cup last 16. That should largely go to former Safa technical women’s director Fran Hilton-Smith, one of many Safa officials to have fallen out with Jordaan, who established the women’s academy at Pretoria University’s High Performance Centre in 2002. Jordaan did establish the first national women’s league, the Hollywoodbets Super League, and for all its shortcomings of being still overwhelmingly amateur and reports of players sleeping in buses, it is a start in the right direction.

But there are far too many deficiencies. The School of Excellence remains a shadow of its former self. The nine provincial satellites for the school, promised to be restored by Jordaan in his first re-election in 2013, never materialised. There is a national technical centre at Fun Valley south of Johannesburg. It now also has some fields. Mostly, it remains a vaguely overhauled former pleasure resort, far from the world-class global versions it should strive to be. And the process of establishing it is tarnished by the allegations that led to a Hawks investigation into Jordaan over alleged financial irregularities.

Junior national teams showed some early improvement when Jordaan first returned to Safa. For the better part of the last half-decade that has cooled as Safa failed or could not afford to appoint permanent coaches to these. The association is permanently cash-strapped, and even its objections to that status have been tinged by allegations of accounting irregularities. Staff cutbacks amid Covid-19 allegedly targeted people in development capacities. Yet when Jordaan ran for re-election in 2022, the already unwieldy, expensive national executive committee (NEC) was expanded. Opponent Ria Ledwaba’s camp alleged this was done to offer places on the NEC in exchange for votes.

As Jordaan has faced accusations of growing paranoia amid press criticism and investigations, his focus has seemed to be on eliminating potential critics or opponents, staying in power and surrounding himself with praise singers. Actually rescuing South African football — a task, admittedly not solely his as the Premier Soccer League plays its role in the discord and lack of foresight that is so damaging to the product, but ultimately it is largely the Safa president’s responsibility — seems to be far down the priority list.

The state of paranoia that seems to pervade Safa appeared evident in the indignant tone of the association’s statement it released this week. The purpose of it, bizarrely, seemed to be to dissuade media houses from reporting that Radebe would like to be Safa president at some stage and his frustrations of many years making headway in that endeavour. It seemed notable that the release made a point to stress it was on behalf of the membership committee and NEC. The reason seemed part to not come directly from Jordaan, indicating an organisation supporting its president; part, perhaps, an embarrassed media department distancing itself from the message.

Safa said Sunday media reports stated Radebe “is going to be president of Safa”. They didn’t. They simply indicated Radebe wants to run for the presidency — the Sunday World report even said “in the future” in its headline.

Safa then listed several reasons why Radebe could not simply take over as president — again, no-one thinks the former defender is going to somehow take over the post. Then, somewhat cattily, it listed the permutations needed should someone want to contest the position. It listed the many tasks the association’s officials are seemingly incredibly busy with and ended with the particularly catty retort that the association “will not entertain trivial distractions”.

What a staggeringly unnecessary waste of time and effort from an association so busy fixing football.

And, sorry, Lucas Radebe stating, again, his desire to achieve the Safa presidency and frustration at the stumbling blocks — and, perhaps, moving of the goalposts — every time he tries, is not a “trivial distraction”. Safa officials who took time from their hotel lunches in the not too distant past to hold a press conference to list the provincial tournaments and coaching courses the body oversees — the bare minimum of their task as custodians of football — as proof of their outstanding contribution to development, are by their nature a trivial distraction from an actual development programme.

There are members of the public who have bought into the notion that since retiring Radebe has not gone through the ranks, coaching juniors or running a local football association. Perhaps there is some point to that. Radebe told Sunday World he believes his Bafana service made him part of Safa structures, and also “served on one of the committees”.

Really, though, does Lucas Radebe have to “go on trial” at football club Safa to prove he has more football knowledge, pedigree and integrity than perhaps Safa’s entire 47-member NEC combined? He’s also a business-savvy global brand. Perhaps preserving their status and perks from being on that NEC is what those members have most at heart in protecting Jordaan, over football interests.

It is also a little unfair to tar all the 47 NEC members that way. There are some with football at heart. Enough to influence that in the next Safa election a doyen of South African football gets a chance to just stand against the incumbent and let the regions choose, in a fair fight? That seems a stretch.