The SA Football Association (Safa ) sees nothing sinister about Orlando Pirates’ decision to withdraw their players from the Bafana Bafana squad to do duty at the Cosafa Cup, starting next Wednesday until August 18 in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape.
This is according to Safa’s chief executive Tebogo Motlanthe. Bafana assistant coach Helman Mkhalele, who’s been standing in as head coach since Hugo Broos went to his native Belgium to get a Covid-19 jab nearly three weeks ago, had called up three Pirates players in Tshegofatso Mabasa, Vincent Pule and Bongani Sam for the Cosafa tournament.
“Yes, Pirates wrote a letter to the league to say they won’t be releasing players for the Cosafa Cup and we’ve accepted that. With Cosafa, we’ve always given younger players a chance… normally it’s played by the Under-23s, so there’s nothing untoward about Pirates’ decision,’’ Motlanthe said yesterday.
“The thing is that our U-23 team is busy preparing for the Olympics, so we couldn’t take them to Cosafa. Coach Mkhalele agreed with Pirates’ decision and the reasons they’ve given, so the players are withdrawn.’’
Sowetan has seen the letter the Buccaneers sent to the league. In the letter, the Soweto giants argue their players are overloaded, hence they can’t be participating at this regional tournament, especially given that it falls out of the CAF and Fifa programmes.
“We take note that the dates of the call-up do not fall in any of the dates applicable to CAF-member federations in the Fifa international calendar. Our club participated in both the CAF Confederation Cup and a highly compacted PSL fixture list over the past eight months, mostly playing two to three fixtures every week,’’ said Pirates letter.
“This loaded our players much more than the recommended levels for professional footballers. In particular, the players that have been called up suffered a number of injuries during this period and remain at high risk.’’
When contacted for comment yesterday, the Buccaneers administrative officer Floyd Mbele admitted they’d sent the letter, insisting he won’t comment further as all was stated in the communiqué they sent.
Bafana are pitted against Botswana, Eswatini and Lesotho. Mkhalele will continue to lead the team as Broos would be still in Belgium, waiting for his second Covid-19 jab.
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