COSATU+welcomes+Carlos+Alberto,+calls+for+a+soccer+indaba



=COSATU welcomes Carlos Alberto Parreira and calls for a soccer indaba=

The Congress of South African Trade Unions welcomes the appointment of the new coach for our national soccer team. Carlos Alberto Parreira has the experience, qualifications and technical know-how required to reposition the national soccer team.

But the appointment of the coach is not in itself the solution we need for the crisis in soccer. Rather, it must form a component of a broader strategy. SAFA must realise that it cannot deliver results unless a range of other measures are taken. Only with stronger support from SAFA, the players, the clubs and all our fans can the new coach help lift our standards to levels that would allow us to compete with the nations of the world in 2010 and beyond.

It is critical that we outline the challenges ahead. Otherwise we will unfairly expect miracles from the coach.

The coach is taking over a ship that has ground to a halt. Ten years ago FIFA ranked South Africa in the top 20 worldwide. Today our rank is at 72. Ten years ago we were the deserving winners of the Africa Cup of Nations. In this year's cup, we could not even score a single goal before being deservingly booted out. We are whipping boys even at the COSAFA level.

The crisis in South Africa is part of the challenge facing African soccer as a whole. Notwithstanding this year's gallant efforts by Ghana and the Ivory Coast, and previously by Cameroon and other countries, no African country has come anywhere close to winning the World Cup. It is all too likely that Africa will host the World Cup for the first time in 2010, only to watch from the sidelines whilst teams from other continents compete for the prize.

The poor performance of the national squad reflects the deeper crisis running from the premier soccer level down to the amateur level. In the 2005/6 Premier Soccer League season, the highest goal scorer had a paltry 14 goals - and he is a foreign player.

It is a serious problem that the new coach does not have good material from which to choose. We no longer have defenders of the standard of Lucas Radebe, Mark Fish, David Nyathi or Sizwe Motaung. We don't have midfield players anywhere close to what we had in Doctor Khumalo, Shoes Moshoeu, Eric Tinkler or Linda Buthelezi.

We have lost basic technical skills. Few of our players have the ability to trap a ball, pass accurately or shoot. We don't have a dead balls specialist who can bend a ball or execute a banana kick.

Addressing this problem is the starting point. This is what we must struggle to change in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. We must take this picture into consideration before we raise our hopes for the new coach to unrealistic levels.

Only a broad and systematic development strategy can address the shortage of new talent. That is the responsibility of the SAFA leadership, not the new coach. If we don't find the quality players of the future, the coach of the national team will be left high and dry. Quality is only produced at the club level.

At the centre of an effective strategy must be the creation of provincial and national academies to identify players with potential in the schools and amateur levels. The national coach can then help mould the products of this process.

COSATU accordingly reiterates its demands that SAFA take urgent steps to address the weaknesses and stop the decline in quality. The first step must be to convene a soccer indaba, in line with COSATU's long-standing demands.

The players with international experience, the club coaches, SAFA and other stakeholders such as the players' union must be roped in to explore ways to improve all aspects of soccer development.

This process should culminate in a programme that will take the soccer to new heights. Whilst we do this, our people - our 45 million coaches - must exercise more patience and understand the need to support a systematic reconstruction process.

This type of process takes time. To succeed, it must start as soon as possible. But we are sure that if we undertake the necessary steps, South Africa can still make its mark in 2010 - not just as a host, but also as a competitor in the World Cup

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