The South African Football Association (Safa) president Dr Danny Jordaan has appealed to the upcoming coaches to eliminate age cheating at all costs as it derails progress on the continent.
Dr Jordaan addressed the provincial educators who are currently at the ongoing Safa/Caf D-License Coaching Course at the Safa National Technical Centre.
‘’Africa has won almost all of Fifa’s junior tournaments from U-17, U-20 and the Olympics on numerous occasions but has never reached the final of the Senior Men’s Fifa World Cup. This is because, in most cases, African teams field overaged players in these junior tournaments. When the same players finally graduate to the senior national team, they will already have passed their peak. This is a serious indictment on us as Africans,’’ said the Safa president.
“I observed the same trend during the Pan African Schools tournament held in Kinshasa in DRC recently where most countries fielded seemingly overaged players.”
He appealed to the coaches from the country’s nine provinces to fight this scourge of age cheating, citing that the future of a great football-playing country is in schools and youth. Hence this particular gathering is very important.
‘’In the developed world, especially in Europe, the coach/player ratio is 20 players per coach while on the continent (Africa) it is mostly 200 players or more to one coach,’’ he added.
‘’In order to churn out as many coaches as possible, we need to have such regular coaching courses.’’
The course, which ran from 24 April to 1 May, is made up of educators whose schools took part in the Pan African schools tournament.
