Safa meet to discuss Bafana successor for Shakes

The South African Football Association meet on Saturday to discuss the new Bafana Bafana coach with chairman Danny Jordaan promising a quick decision on Shakes Mashaba’s successor.

Jordaan will take charge of a technical committee meeting at Safa House in Johannesburg where the organisation will discuss several candidates and set the road forward to be able to quickly conclude negotiations and have a new coach in place by the end of the month.

“There are a lot of candidates who have approached us‚ I have spoken myself to several and we will go through all of this at a meeting‚” he said.

Jordaan spent the last month in Gabon at the African Nations Cup and was approached by several top coaches about the Bafana job.

“There is no shortage of people who want to coach South Africa. They know the potential we have in the country‚” Jordaan added.

Several coaches from the tournament in Gabon want to be considered including Micho Srejedovich (Uganda)‚ Claude Le Roy (Togo) and Herve Renard (Morocco).

But the frontrunner remains former Bafana coach Carlos Queiroz‚ who Jordan had originally wanted to replace Gordon Igesund in 2014 but who acceded to other committee members who rather wanted to go with a local coach and plumped for Mashaba.

South Africa have been without a coach since Mashaba was fired in December following a lengthy disciplinary process which he is currently challenging.

The country plan two friendlies in late March before their next competitive match which is against Nigeria in June when the 2019 Nations Cup preliminaries get underway.

Also on Saturday’s meeting the agenda will be the Banyana Banyana post. Desiree Ellis took over from Vera Pauw last year and was in charge at the African Womens’ Nations Cup in Cameroon late last year.

But her appointment is not yet permanent and a decision over whether SAFA might bring another foreign coach to take charge of a World Cup qualifying bid is to be discussed.

- TMG Digital/TMG Sport