Minister ‘needs to apologise’
The South Africa Football Players' Union (Safpu) have demanded an apology from Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula after he yesterday led a scathing attack on Bafana Bafana, labelling them "useless" and a "bunch of losers" following their embarrassing first round exit from the African Nations Championship (Chan) on home soil.
FILE PICTURE: Fikile Mbalula (Minister of Sport and Recreation). Picture: Ziyaad Douglas/Gallo Images.
Thulaganyo Gaoshubelwe, Safpu’s general secretary, questioned the Sports Minister’s comments yesterday.
“It is very sad what the minister said to these boys,” he said. “He is expected to play the role of a father figure but he just criticised them.
“How will the players respond next time?” he said. “These are players who went out of their way to represent the country and they get criticised this way.
“We expect an apology from him.”
Gaoshubelwe further challenged Mbalula by saying the minister should spread the net wider and investigate the dynamics of the country’s game rather than single out individuals.
“He should check what’s the difference between rugby and cricket compared to football and then maybe he will get an idea of what’s going on in the game,” he said. “Our peformance at Chan is the result of the ongoing problems in our game.”
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