Stuart Baxter, coach of South Africa (Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix)
The English coach says the salary he is earning is only a small amount more than he was getting at SuperSport United.
“I earn just about a kick up the arse more from what I learned at club level,” said the Bafana coach at a media breakfast on Tuesday.
“I paid SuperSport to leave because I was so passionate about wanting this job.”
The Bafana coach has come in for heavy criticism in his second spell in charge of the senior national team, after he failed to lead the team to the 2018 Fifa World Cup, suffering two embarrassing defeats at the hands of the Cape Verde Islands and another two losses against the team that did eventually qualify for Russia, Senegal.
Baxter, however, believes that the problem in South African football is systemic, and pointed at all the other coaches who had already failed to take Bafana to great heights.
“We are not going to get it right if we keep on replicating what we have been doing, it doesn’t matter who is the coach,” said Baxter.
“Was it Pitso’s fault? Was it Gordon’s fault? Was it Shakes’ fault? Was it Carlos’ fault? Whose fault was it? The way we perceive development is not working, we have to get back to that.”
The Bafana coach added that he had been asked to submit a report to the South African Football Association after the World Cup qualifying failure.
“I think we are absolutely at a crossroads. I think we have to make a conscious decision … I think some players will need to be moved to one side to give younger players a chance,” she added.
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