SAFA Congress to push ahead with implementation of coaching license regulations?

Speaking to journalists during the media roundtable with Safa leadership in Johannesburg yesterday, Steenbok says they are banking on the long overdue Safa Congress this weekend to ratify the regulations that would see coaches producing licenses to sit on the bench as it happens in Caf inter-club competitions.

"This issue of coaching qualifications was raised even by the first TD (Technical Director) that we had in 2012, Serame Letsoaka. 

Coaches were even given enough leeway and enough time to be able to get the right qualifications. But when you have a lot of teams in the PSL who are not employing qualified coaches, it talks to our members," he said.

In the Caf Champions League and Caf Confederation Cup matches head coaches are required to have a Caf A license and assistant coaches must produce B licenses to be able to sit on the bench. 

Other countries like Zambia and Botswana in the region have implemented these regulations. 

Steenbok says the lack of implementation of the club licensing regulations on the sporting front in the PSL has also affected the quality of talent produced locally.

"We are not taking the players to Europe but the PSL is also to blame because the players are on their own. Professional players are on their own, it's a fact. If you have Musa Nyatama who's a C License coach, coaching professional players. 

A, C License level, allows you only deal with junior players. Youth is also B License. These are the issues that I'm saying we are aware of but going to the congress I will be very aggressive because it's in the development plan," he explained.

Some PSL club coaches who don’t have the required coaching licenses, have been embarrassingly banished to the stands in some matches in the CAF inter-club competitions. But they return and sit on the benches locally because there are no regulations. 

Safa is also under pressure from the Fifa Technical Development Scheme (TDS), which produced an 81-page report on the Football eco-system in the country from Fifa Head of Global Football Arsene Wenger’s office, to bring some changes in local football. 

When the Club Licensing programmes came to SA, Safa allowed the PSL to handle it for its two divisions but Safa CEO, Advocate Tebogo Motlanthe says they now realize that this might not have been a good idea.

"We had said that somewhere in the system there was an error that was committed when club licensing was introduced. We had this discussion at legal and constitutional, we had this discussion with the president (Danny Jordaan) that we need to go back to the Joint Liaison Committee and take the powers of club licensing back. They're a lot of things which are hidden which club licensing wants to come and put to light," said Motlanthe.