SAFA not compliant to conduct CAF A and B coaching license courses

This was confirmed to SABC Sport by the SAFA Technical Director Walter Steenbok, who also revealed that they are urgently working around this issue to ensure that they have coaching education manuals that would meet the CAF Coaching Convention. It’s been six years since coaches in the country last attended a CAF A & B coaching license course, Steenbok says South Africa has no accredited manual for an A and B license.

"In terms of CAF B & A licenses, I want to announce that South Africa has no accredited manual for a B & A license. So, that is a process that I'm going to have to start," he said.

SAFA was supposed to have held a CAF A coaching course in November and December and went as far as shortlisting, mostly coaches in the professional ranks who needed to complete it. Steenbok, who started at SAFA in September last year, says he has created a group with South African football experts in hopes of using them to develop a manual that can be submitted to CAF for accreditation.

"I've created a WhatsApp group of technical experts in South Africa from sports medicine, media so that we can start building up and creating new manuals for B & A. Because as it stands now, South African manuals for B & A have not been accepted by CAF. So, the process is only starting now," he concluded.

This comes as a big blow to SAFA’s plan of ensuring that most coaches in the professional ranks who did not have the CAF A and B licenses and those who have not been allowed to sit on the bench in the CAF inter-club matches are helped through the long-awaited coaching courses. But Steenbok assures that sometime this year this will be sorted out and there is a silver lining in this.

"On the negative side, this embarrassed us as the association. But again, I want to be positive about it. It gives us a huge opportunity to be able to design a coaching manual that represents South Africa. It's huge responsibility that I hope to finish with all South Africans who are in the technical space, media space, sports medicine and all of that. At least by July or August this year since we have already started," he concluded.