Mzansi Football and Kickoff.com report that the captains and coaches of South Africa’s men’s and women’s national teams failed to cast their vote for FIFA’s Golden Ball as the World’s Player of the Year awards are now known. According to the governing body, the 2010 World Cup hosts were one of just a handful of countries (out of 208) that did not vote. The awards went to Lionel Messi for the second year in a row and Marta for the fifth (?!) year in a row.
“It is the latest botch up by SAFA since the World Cup and makes a mockery of claims the association’s new leadership would bring a new efficiency to the running of the game,” writes kickoff.com. “They failed to enter the country’s teams in the All-Africa Games qualifiers and had to scramble to the Confederation of African Football in Cairo to get a backdoor entry when Namibia withdrew.” Read the full, thoroughly embarrassing details here.
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3 replies on “South Africa “forgets” to vote for FIFA awards”
Forgot to vote! One expects SA to be the last country to forget anything to do with football, having just hosted the World Cup a few months back! that is a very dangerous mental lapse, which is not only an index of inefficiency, but could be construed as a ‘political’ statement, abstaining because of displeasure with some aspect of the awards, which am sure is not the case, or is it?
No political statement, just same old mismanagement.
As Mark Gleeson insightfully noted on his News 24 weekly column after the AAll Africa games debacle, unlike the FA ‘s of Lesotho and Swaziland, SAFA has once again proven itself incapable of sending a fax. And its not the first time this happens, even during Satan’s reign Raymond Hack forgot to cast their vote. SAFA boogles the mind at times.