Dear Dr Danny Jordaan

Congratulations on your recent election for another term at the pinnacle of South African football administration. If there had been any doubt that you are a darling of our football-loving nation, it would have evaporated in the wake of your landslide victory – 234 out of 246 votes, which translates into a 95.12% margin.

I have heard what you said your priorities will be: strengthening women’s football and hosting another soccer World Cup, following the 2010 extravaganza, where our national team bombed out in the first round, as well as improving club football so that South Africa can have more representatives at the FIFA Club World Cup.

These are worthy goals but, respected sir, you seem to be overlooking the little matter of Bafana Bafana’s unrelenting deterioration since a beaming Neil Tovey, as captain of the team, hoisted the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) trophy in 1996. The Boys dropped one notch at the next Afcon tournament two years later, finishing as runners-up to Egypt. Their only credible achievement thereafter was qualifying for the 2002 World Cup. It has been downhill ever since.

This year’s World Cup kicks off in Moscow in just under a week, and the African representatives are Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia. For the umpteenth time, our beloved Bafana Bafana did not make the grade and we will have to root for other countries’ teams.

According to the latest FIFA rankings, Bafana Bafana are languishing in seventy-second position in the world, a far cry from the glory days when they cracked the top 20, ranking nineteenth. That was 22 years ago, after their Afcon triumph. On the continent, they are ranked fifteenth – behind the Russia-bound teams and the likes of Algeria, Burkina Faso, Carbo Verde, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Guinea and Mali.

Why, in your opinion, respected sir, did Bafana Bafana fizzle out, despite showing so much promise following its return to the international fold in 1992?

My view, for what it is worth, is that the likes of you, who have been the denizens of the corridors of power at Safa House for donkey’s years, must shoulder at least some of the blame for the state of our football.

First, you do not seem to recognise a good coach when you see one. As CEO of the South African Football Association (Safa) at the time, you must have had a hand in the sacking of Carlos Queiroz on the eve of the 2002 World Cup, for which Bafana Bafana had qualified under his guidance. To you and your ilk, he was not good enough. But Alex Ferguson at Man U, recognising his talent, snapped him up as his number two. Subsequently, Spanish giants Real Madrid hired him as manager. He has also been at the helm of the national team of his native Portugal and will be guiding Iran at the Russia jamboree. Current Bafana Bafana coach Stuart Baxter and Pitso Mosimane and Gordon Igesund before him have all had dazzling tenures at club level but their achievements with the national team have been dololo (ziltch). Even ol’ Shakes was not that bad as a club coach. I am convinced someone at Safa House interferes in coaching matters.