British Football Academy SA ambassador Daine Klate has dissected problems that are hindering progress in South African youth football, saying “there’s a big need to reshuffle everything”.
BFA is a high-performance international football academy aiming at unearthing talent in SA and exporting youngsters abroad. They are currently located in Durban but looking to stretch all over the country at some stage.
The academy founders; John Read, Peter Coyle and Ian Kilbride are all natives of England and have strong links with almost every professional club in their home country. They believe their network will enable BFA students to have access to opportunities abroad.
Klate, who was appointed as the academy’s ambassador last year, also grants the coaches technical expertise.
Having been in the school of excellence before, La Masia head coach says he knows “the type of requirements needed to produce” players. He believes his knowledge in the space of football development will be of service to the academy.
Klate admitted there hasn’t been growth in the development of the juniors over the years in the country. He thinks SA isn’t keen on nurturing raw talent but wants the end-product.
He’s confident that a project like the British Football Academy stands to uplift the standard of football in the country.
DAINE KLATE SAYS SA HAS BEEN ‘GOING BACKWARDS’ IN DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG FOOTBALLERS
“I think there’s a lack of investment, lack of interest, everybody wants the end product but nobody wants to spend time, money, there’s not enough sponsors and we don’t take the development seriously,” said Klate.
“I think we cut corners too much, players that shouldn’t be playing at the highest level are playing at the highest level, underdeveloped players.
“There’s a big need to reshuffle everything and I think it starts with the head. You know if you look at where we are as a country in terms of our junior teams, we’re actually nowhere.
“Again, there’s a lack of investment there. When I was playing under 17, we used to go to Portugal, played against Cristiano Ronaldo, [Ricardo] Quaresma in 2001.
“How in 2024 we’re still here, we don’t compete against those types of national teams anymore, those types of academies anymore. We don’t have interprovincial tournaments anymore like we used to have.
“In actual fact, we’ve gone very, very backwards. There’s less football activity from SAFA now and more football activity from everybody else, that’s a big miss.
‘IT’S PROBABLY FROM SAFA SIDE’
“That’s something that’s missing in the country, it’s probably from the SAFA side that the development of football should be taken seriously and they should be helping establish academies more.
“If anything, it’s sad that schools of excellence are no longer there. It’s going backwards there as well. So, yeah I don’t think we take development seriously and there’s not enough investment.”
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