SOWETAN | Jordaan's Banyana pay talk not convincing

Now that Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis has completed the difficult task of selecting her 23-woman team to travel to the World Cup, we must hope our girls can do the country proud in Australia and New Zealand next month.

Banyana have grown as a team since their first appearance at the global showpiece in France in 2019. They went on to become African champions for the first time, winning the Women Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) by stunning Morocco last year.

But the World Cup, which kicks off on July 20, is a different beast altogether, as Banyana will be up against teams of higher stature. In our first appearance in France, we returned three defeats from the pool phase, and there are fears we could be in for an even bigger hiding after our girls were drawn with Sweden, Italy and Argentina this time around.

Banyana have defied the odds before, and exceeded expectations.

While many may find it encouraging to hear Safa will finally remunerate them in accordance with their male counterparts, Bafana Bafana, we have to caution against early celebrations because Safa are notorious for political speak.

Yesterday, we quoted Safa president Danny Jordaan as saying “the carrots Bafana get, Banyana will also get. No one will get a bigger or smaller carrot.

That, however, is not a certainty that Banyana will be paid similar to Bafana. Jordaan went on to highlight the US$30,000 (R570,000) appearance fee per player made available by Fifa at this Women’s World Cup as a sign of parity. That’s far from convincing.

Last year, Safa had to be bailed out by the government and sponsors Sasol in securing decent bonus packages for Banyana after they clinched the Wafcon. Then, Jordaan was telling all and sundry that women’s football was far from profitable, which is a valid point.

We have to hope that this World Cup draws TV audiences required to lift it to almost par with the men’s event, so that sponsors can see value in it and, consequently, put in more resources that would help our women earn a decent living from the game.

Jordaan’s comments after Ellis’s squad announcement was far from reassuring. He should have told us how much Safa were planning to pay our girls, even without the Fifa grant, which the world governing body thankfully made public.

We do not trust that our girls are any closer to earning the same as Bafana because Jordaan’s speech had no timeframes or deadlines – just pure political speak meant to appease our girls. They deserve far better than that.