In a stark warning to the South African Football Association (SAFA), sports minister Gayton McKenzie has demanded the national team qualify for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations and World Cup or he will be a loggerheads with the organisation.
McKenzie, who has made headlines in recent weeks for his vociferous support of South Africa’s sports stars excelling on the world stage, said he did not have confidence in SAFA president Danny Jordaan.
“I don’t have full confidence. I’ve got full confidence in the rugby at the moment,” McKenzie said, as quoted by TimesLive.
“Because full confidence doesn’t come with talk, it comes with results. I’ve got full confidence in the rugby because the results are there to see. The results are not there with the soccer, the results are not there with the hockey,” he said.
“And I’m not a man who gets overpowered and impressed with words. I like action. I told the man you are talking about, Dr Danny Jordaan, and I told Safa, ‘Give me two deliverables’. I’m the ultimate accounting authority when it comes to football and sport in this country.
“I said to them: ‘Qualify for the World Cup, qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations.’ I’m giving them all the support now, but I can’t be giving people support until kingdom come, who are not performing.
“[For] a country like ours, qualifying for the World Cup, qualifying for Nations Cup, those things are not even difficult. Burkina Faso and those countries, who don’t have our type of money in sport [qualify].
“Do you know we are the most-funded league on the African continent, the PSL [Premier Soccer League]? How come we can’t win the Nations Cup? How come we can’t be accepted in the World Cup?
“We mustn’t accept mediocrity. I’m going to make sure — I’m public about it, they know it. For now they have my support, but soon if they don’t qualify, we must get people who can qualify. This is a national asset we’re talking about, this is not ‘Jy’s my bra’ or ‘I know you’. No, no, no.”
McKenzie, though, was a smiling man on Tuesday after Bafana Bafana secured a win against South Sudan in dramatic fashion.
With the game deadlocked at two goals apiece deep in stoppage time, Thalente Mbatha once again stepped up and fired the ball into the back of the net, giving Hugo Broos’ men the three points in their Africa Cup of Nations qualifier.
And, like he always does, he took to X to let the country just know how he was feeling with the result.
“Well done boys. We are on the right track,” he wrote.
IOL Sport