Talk is cheap when Safa and the PSL get together over tea
IT ALL sounded convincing, a dream marketing speech that would have drawn the attention of any audience. As Robin Petersen, the SA Football Association’s chief executive, gave the media “feedback” on a symposium held last week, even the most dismissive of individuals would have been forced to listen.
Petersen took us through the resolutions taken at the symposium, arranged by Safa in an attempt to find answers to the debilitating situation in which SA football finds itself.
Delegates, including former players and coaches, were seen debating the way forward in select video clips played for us just before Petersen’s presentation.
Impressively, sound resolutions were taken after a “robust, open and dynamic deliberation and dialogue” at the symposium. These resolutions formed the basis of Petersen’s hour-long presentation.
They include a bold plan to fast-track the unearthing and development of talent in the country, the establishment of some “technical working group” which would report back to Safa within six months, and the setting up of a database which would register all footballers in the country.
Such a database, Petersen said, would contain every detail on every player, including correct date of birth to negate the scourge of age cheating.
Coaches scratching their heads when looking to select players, particularly for junior national teams, would be able to make their pick at the click of a computer mouse, we were told.
As much as Petersen’s speech was enchanting, some of us soon sought relief from our cellphones to find if there was anything more interesting on social networks.
The fact is, Safa have made so many promises and held so many indabas, symposiums or whatever they’re called, in recent years that those of us who’ve heard it all before have simply had enough.
A leadership that ascended to the hotseat on the premise of “transformation” has, since 2009, transformed absolutely nothing. We thus have to be sceptical about the latest list of promises.
What’s even more worrying is the continuing cold war between Safa and the PSL, again evident from last week when the PSL was conspicuously absent from the symposium.
Premiership clubs preferred to send assistant coaches or representatives of no stature whatsoever, effectively snubbing the event, even though Petersen tried to put a spin on this.
He was seemingly delighted by the presence of low-level club officials and coaches, while oddly, Safa had dispatched a powerful delegation to the PSL’S own conference two weeks earlier when president Kirsten Nematandani and technical director Serame Letsoaka were among the speakers.
I’m told that the only current Premiership coach who bothered to attend last week’s Safa symposium was Gordon Igesund of Moroka Swallows. That’s pretty shameful and speaks volumes of the chasm between the PSL and Safa.
Yet almost daily we are told of “cordial” meetings between these organisations in spite of growing evidence that they despise each other. Firm handshakes and fake smiles while drinking tea in a boardroom will not suddenly mend relations soured by the Safa presidential election three years ago. Only recently clubs withdrew players from national duty for absolutely no reason.
The apparent lack of cordiality between Safa and the PSL is the main reason why I fear last week’s symposium, and another one planned for the middle of the year, will amount to yet another empty talkshop, with set goals unlikely to be achieved when one organisation is working against the other.
@Nkareng