Amidst all the politicking, in-fighting and handbag-throwing around the South African Football Association presidential elections, I may have missed a trick, but one important factor has not escaped my attention.
Just what do our various candidates, Danny Jordaan, Irvin Khoza and even Kirsten Nematandani intend to do about dragging our national football team out of the mire?
With current incumbent Molefi Oliphant leaving behind him a legacy of abysmal performances on the field, there is plenty to do for whoever is left to lead South African football into a new era.
It is all very well, for example, that Danny Jordaan has brought the 2010 World Cup to this country. But unless drastic measures are taken, the World Cup is set to be a peak before a dramatic trough.
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After the pomp and circumstance of the World Cup, for one, the national team will actually have to start qualifying for major tournaments again. Unless they can stun the world by producing an astonishing performance at the World Cup, Bafana will in no way be among the top seeds in future qualifiers.
They have failed to qualify for the 2010 African Nations Cup, and are currently ranked as only the 15th best side in Africa. From the heights of the African Nations Cup triumph in 1996, Bafana have plumbed new depths under the current regime.
The new president faces a mountainous task to revive South Africa's footballing fortunes. For a country with such incredible potential, South Africa is simply not producing enough talented young players.
While the national under-20 team competing at the world championships in Egypt offer a beacon of hope, development structures are quite simply not good enough, and calls for a massive overhaul from previous Bafana coaches like Stuart Baxter and Carlos Alberto Parreira have gone largely unheeded.
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