Jonty Mark

By Jonty Mark

Football Editor


Safa set to appoint new coach before month end

Danny Jordaan says the South African Football Association are looking have a new Bafana Bafana head coach in place by the end of February.


Safa’s national executive committee met on Saturday to discuss the way forward following the sacking of Shakes Mashaba just before Christmas, and came up with 11 criteria that a new coach must fulfil.

One of these is that coaches must have international coaching experience, especially in African competition. It seems highly likely that Safa will appoint a coach from overseas, with the Safa president making a point of mentioning the coaches that have had a good club record in the PSL, but have failed with Bafana.

“Screamer Tshabalala …. Jeff Butler … Augusto Palacios, Ted Dumitru … the story goes on and on and on, it is not automatic that if you have success with a club you will have success with a national team,” said Jordaan.

The Safa president added that they would be head-hunting the new coach, though Safa CEO Dennis Mumble said that they had already received plenty of CVs from interested parties.

Among those that Mumble said sent their CVs include former Italian national team coach Giovanni Trapattoni, former Manchester City coach Roberto Mancini, former Egypt coach Hassan Shehata and former Ghana and Algeria coach Milovan Rajevac.

Jordaan added that the new coach would be expected to qualify the side for the 2018 Fifa World Cup finals and the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations

South Africa will play two friendlies, meanwhile, at the end of March, at home to Guinea-Bissau and away to Angola.

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