17 July 2024 – The South African Football Association (SAFA) Technical Committee met at SAFA House in Nasrec, in the south of Johannesburg, on Wednesday and a wide range of topics were under discussion.
SAFA Technical Committee Chairman Jack Maluleka said the meeting was very successful and some important decisions were taken in the best interests of South African football.
“There were several issues under discussion, and among others, we took the decision to appoint a manager for the SAFA Technical Center, that is for the boys’ academy. We have made our recommendation because the person is from the interviews. The name will be brought before the NEC for endorsement,” he said.
“We also felt that Simphiwe Dludlu must be given the position of manager at the High Performance Centre (HPC) in Tshwane. We have to report back because we did not have an under-23 head coach before, so we have to report back to the NEC for this endorsement as well.
“As far as the academies are concerned, we received the data of all the academies in South Africa. We have to categorize them because some of them, they call themselves academies, but they don’t meet the requirements. So, the technical committee will task certain individuals in the provinces to go and visit those academies that are on our data so that we can regulate them correctly and categorize them.
“The other thing is the support that we should give coaching education. We are aware that the LFAs and the regions are also training coaches. We need to empower that department because this was part of Vision 2022, and we should train a lot of coaches based on the reforms of coaches on the benches of the various categories.
“We need to open up the space to ensure no province must lack the coaches that have qualified based on the reforms. These are some of the things that I think we have achieved, and the last one should be the preparation for the junior national teams, specifically the under-20s.”
Bafana Bafana assistant coach Helman Mkhalele also submitted his technical report following the participation of the South African team men’s side that played in the COSAFA Cup in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, recently. The main objective of participating in the regional event was to develop a larger pool of players and further SAFA’s long-term vision. Mkhalele said he was proud of his players and added that he has already communicated his findings at the tournament to head coach Hugo Broos.
