THE SA Football Association will not line up any friendly internationals for Bafana Bafana until the draw for the qualifying rounds of 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) and the 2018 Africa Nations Championship (Chan) – or until they appoint a new national coach.
Safa CEO Dennis Mumble explained that it was futile to arrange friendly games for the next Fifa calender date in March until a new coach was in place.
He added: “Even more importantly, we want to wait until Caf (the Confederation of Africa Football) makes the draw for the 2019 Afcon and the next Chan tournaments (on 18 January) before we start trying to put any friendly games in place.”
Mumble is hopeful that a friendly can be arranged for the new coach to get a look at his players during the Fifa calender date from 20-28 March.
Bafana’s next official match will be the 2018 World Cup qualifier away to Cape Verde on 28 August. Bafana are in a solid position in Group D, having collected four points from two matches. They drew 1-1 away to Burkina Faso and beat Senegal 2-1 at home last year.
And the new national coach will have plenty of time to prepare his squad for Cape Verde.
Mumble made no bones about the fact that they expect Bafana to qualify for the 2018 global showpiece in Russia: “We have the talent and ability, and have to qualify for Russia. We would have to consult with the new coach and see what the Chan and Afcon draws throw up, as we don’t want to be playing teams we will meet in qualifying for either Afcon or Chan.”
But Mumble’s biggest priority will be to get the right coach to replace Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba who was fired by Safa last month.
Mashaba was axed after a lengthy disciplinary hearing that lasted a week. He faced charges of gross misconduct and bringing the association into disrepute after he had a rant at Mumble and Safa president Danny Jordaan in Polokwane following the Senegal victory in November.
The former coach had also had a long-running battle with the media since he was appointed in 2014.
Mumble said the search to find Mashaba’s successor would get underway this week. He confirmed that a new head coach would be in place by the end of next month at the latest.
