BAFANA Bafana head coach Stuart Baxter and his technical team have been summoned to appear before the SA Football Association (Safa) technical committee next week.
This was revealed yesterday by Safa CEO Dennis Mumble, who emphasised that Baxter is GOING NOWHERE.
But Safa does want answers from the senior national team coach and his assistants following Bafana’s disastrous 2018 Fifa World Cup qualifying campaign in which Bafana finished bottom of Group D.
Stated Mumble: “Let me be clear that we are not firing the coach. Firing the coach is not the answer. He has only had seven months with the players. We can’t keep firing coaches.
“The only reason the previous coach (Shakes Mashaba) was fired was due to disciplinary issues.”
Mumble confirmed Baxter’s statement that he was not given a mandate to qualify for the 2018 World Cup: “He is on a long-term contract (five years) and his job is not on the line. We’re not hiring a coach for seven months and firing him.
“We are calling him and his staff to this meeting to get to the bottom of what went wrong. But realistically we did not expect Baxter to qualify after being with the team for only a short time.
“When we beat Nigeria (2-0) in Afcon (Africa Cup of Nations) qualifiers we saw expectations of qualifying for the World Cup rise.
“We have a Vision 2022, not a Vision 2018. Vision 2022 is to reconstruct our soccer from the ground up and that is why we hired Stuart Baxter on a long-term contract.
“But despite not having the World Cup as his target Bafana’s performances in the qualifiers were not acceptable, considering the squad we have. What we need to find out from Baxter and his team is what went wrong and why they could not deliver. Are there other issues we are not seeing?
“Is it a problem of blending European based players and local ones? We have to get to the bottom of all this and move forward.
“We have to be able to fix the mistakes. We will ask the coach what he needs to succeed. We have a break until our Afcon campaign resumes in March and we want to make sure we give Baxter all the tools needed to succeed.”
Safa technical committee members are expected to grill Baxter and his technical team on their strategies, tactics, team selections and other matters at the meeting. “The coach will face some tough questions.”
Bafana’s next Afcon qualifier is against Libya in Durban on 24 March.
