BAFANA Bafana coach Hugo Broos and Safa president Danny Jordaan both dispelling the coach’s reported resignation. | Archives
DANNY Jordaan, the president of the South African Football Association (Safa), and Hugo Broos have moved swiftly to dispel fears that the Bafana Bafana mentor has resigned ahead of the eve of the team’s 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign.
Jordaan shot down reports that the national team coach resigned a day after South Africa claimed the bronze medal at Afcon in Ivory Coast after beating DR Congo 6-5 on penalties in the tournament third-place play-off.
“It’s absolute nonsense to say the coach has resigned. He returned to South Africa earlier this week and is hard at work with the team’s technical staff to prepare for the national team’s matches later this month,” said Jordaan.
“We are dealing with saboteurs who want to derail South African football. These people are not happy that our teams Bafana Bafana and Banyana Banyana have been successful.
“These diversionary tactics are aimed to disrupt our progress and we have had to cope with these elements for the past few months.
“The latest disruption is spreading rumours that Safa’s CEO (Lydia Monyepao) has resigned. It is a blatant lie.”
Like Jordaan, Broos has refuted claims about his reported resignation and dismissed media reports as rumours.
“There’s nothing, really nothing,” Broos told the media. If Broos is leaving South Africa, then it will be because the federation (Safa) decides I leave. That’s all, I’m happy with my job, I’m happy with the team.”
Monyepao said dismissed the resignation claim as malicious gossip with the contempt it deserves.
“The president and I have a healthy working relationship,” said Monyepao, who is also a former Banyana player.
On Tuesday, SAFA issued a statement which briefly read: “We (SAFA) will not be detracted from our plans, and we are fully focused on qualifying for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
“Bafana Bafana is participating in the FIFA Series international friendlies pilot project in Algeria, which runs from 18 to 26 March 2024.
“Banyana Banyana are playing the final round of the Paris Olympic qualifier against Nigeria between the 1st and the 9th of April 2024.”
The Broos speculation follows the online publication of a Dutch podcast of the show The Frank & Franky in Belgium. During the program, Broos raised several issues that have dogged his tenure as Bafana coach.
The major issue for Broos was the lack of cooperation by the Premier Soccer League (PSL).
“The opposition of the league (PSL) is something I don’t understand. I will give an example. In May (2023), we started to prepare. We had some friendly matches and two qualifying matches for the World Cup and then the preparations for Afcon.
“The league was scheduled until 31 December. I decided to write a letter to the league’s chairman to ask to stop after Christmas and there was no reply. When the fixtures came out, the first thing I looked at was when they broke, and they only stopped on 31 December.
“I wrote another letter to explain that Sundowns players feature in so many competitions, they need a break before Afcon. But then 14 days later we received a response and it started with ‘we support Bafana Bafana and the coach, but we could not change it due to the sponsors’.
“They said they discussed it with everyone, which is not true.”
The other sore point was the Orlando Pirates’ refusal to allow Broos to watch their home matches even if he has the required accreditation. He said he was not allowed entry to Orlando Stadium multiple times. He said he was prevented on the instruction of Pirates and PSL chairman Irvin Khoza.
Bafana will be participating in the FIFA Series international friendlies pilot project in Algeria, which runs from 18 to 26 March 2024.
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