South Africa’s Minister of Sport and Recreation, Fikile Mbalula, has praised the appointment of Ephraim ‘Shakes’ Mashaba as the new Bafana Bafana coach.
Mashaba’s return to the post was confirmed by the South African Football Association on Saturday and will replace the outgoing Gordon Igesund.
“I support the decision to appoint the new coach, but over and above that we must have a long-term vision of what must happen with South African soccer,” Mbalula said.
“Football development is critical … We must know where we want to be 10 years from now. I have said in parliament that I’m looking beyond the coach in relation to developing football in this country.
“We must develop football through schools sports and I’m working with SAFA to implement the big task.”
His words were echoed by SAFA president, Danny Jordaan, who said: “We appointed a coach and the pressure is on to build a team for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, but it is not just looking at the coach and the national team because there is also Vision 2022.
“We are working on the reconstruction of South African football and the thing you may know is that we have formed U-13, U-15 and U-17 Leagues in each of our (52) Local Football Associations,” said Jordaan.
“The U-21s were also playing in Mafikeng recently where Free State became the champions. We had U-19 national championships in Bloemfontein and the U-17 national champions in Soweto. As a result, we have active U-17 and U-20 national teams.”
