Government to afford Clive Barker a state funeral Zizi Kodwa

Speaking to the media on Monday, after visiting the home of the 1996 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) winning coach, Kodwa revealed that the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government will now take the process forward of organizing the state funeral.

Barker passed away at the age of 78 on Saturday after a long illness.

"Of course, I join the millions of South Africans to really express our profound sincere condolences to the Barker family and the entire football fraternity. We want to celebrate this life but in doing so, we thought we should come to the family, and get to know the family's wishes," he said.

"We couldn't announce certain things as you know in government there will be processes that should be followed. Now that the family has accepted, they'll be followed by the provincial government to have some form of a provincial official. We hope that the province will act immediately so that we meet the wishes of the family to have a dignified burial this Thursday here in Durban."

Kodwa says Barker, the only coach to have brought an international trophy to Bafana Bafana since the readmission to international football in 1992, deserves a dignified and celebratory send-off.

"It's one person that must be celebrated because at the dawn of our democracy, the hopes of our people were lifted high, in 95/96 by the team led by none other than Neil Tovey and many others. Remember that time football was the only hope for our people, it was the only sport that really united our people then others followed with 1995 rugby and so on. We think such a giant, such a galaxy of stars must be celebrated."