[I’m all for high salaries, and its not the high salary that is an issue to me. But I heard the outgoing coach was quoted as saying that the problem is not with the coaches and that they can get any coach they want – the problem is with the players. I am amazed at how badly the black soccer team is performing. For 10 straight years they’ve been getting worse and worse. But this is… “typically African” it seems to me. Not even their own leaders can manage them. Interestingly, all the coaches they get these days are from overseas but that seems to be no help at all. When I look at Bafana Bafana I see the ANC, and all I do is have a good hearty laugh at the idiots. They’re not fit to live! Jan]

The leadership of the South African Football Association (Safa) has been pressured by Parliament’s sports committee into confirming for the first time in public that the new national soccer coach will earn in a month far more than President Thabo Mbeki earns in a year.

Safa was grilled on the money to be paid to Brazilian Carlos Albert Parreira and his assistant coach on the basis that it was, in the same way as Mbeki’s salary, a matter of national importance.

After initially refusing to divulge the salary that Parreira would earn, Safa president Molefi Oliphant and his delegation admitted after gruelling questioning that the “all in” package for Parreira would be R1,8m a month.

This was the total “cost to company” and included salary, tax, house, phone and travel.

Mbeki’s total remuneration package was recently raised to R1181438 a year.

ANC MP Cedric Frolic demanded to know why Safa did not want to make Parreira’s salary public, when Mbeki’s was a matter of public knowledge.

He noted that there were budget projections in documents submitted by Safa that seemed to indicate that Parreira would get R1,8m a month for 46 months, and demanded to know whether this was a correct interpretation of their figures.

Safa vice-president Mubarak Mahomed confirmed that Frolic’s interpretation was correct. He said that this did not include incentive payments and that Parreira’s contract was to take the national side first to the African Cup of Nations and then to the World Cup in 2010.

In response to a question from United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa, Mahomed conceded that fluctuations had been built into the system as Parreira’s payments were dollar-based and provision had to be made for changes in the exchange rate.

The assistant coach, to be appointed by Parreira, will be paid R695000 a month.

Also under fire from the committee was payment made to Bafana Bafana players. Mahomed said SA was the only country in Africa that paid its players for their participation. All others paid them only for achieving good results, he said.

Asked why Safa had turned its back on former captain Lucas Radebe, the delegation expressed disappointment with Radebe, saying that when he had been approached he had said he was not ready for a post with Bafana.

Source: AllAfrica.Com
URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/200608290258.htm…/p>