After a two month break in competitive football, the SAFA junior league was supposed to kick-off its 2014/15 season this past weekend at Kutliso Daniels Secondary School.
After a two month break in competitive football, the SAFA junior league was supposed to kick-off its 2014/15 season this past weekend at Kutliso Daniels Secondary School.
However not everything went according to plan.
A number of matches were classified as friendly warm ups instead of official league openers.
This is said to be because SAFA coordinators were unable to make it to the playing fields where the matches were being held.
Saturday was supposed to be the start of the under 13s league while under the 15s and 17s were scheduled to play on Sunday.
All the scheduled under 13 matches on Saturday were categorised as friendlies according to people at the venue, a decision that was not taken lightly by club owners whose teams had travelled a long way to play.
Golden Brothers coach, Thozamile Yaka, said he didn’t understand the reason not to go ahead with the league matches as planned.
He blamed the league coordinators for poor communication and said they had not alerted him in time about the decision.
“My boys walked very far to come to this game, and now to tell us we just here for a friendly is not very good.
“This will kill the morale of these kids, but there’s nothing we can do, they make the decisions, “said a distraught-looking Yaka.
Siyabonga Masinda had a fixture scheduled for his Sakhulutsha under 17 side on Sunday and said that, as far as he knew, they were playing a league match.
He says he wouldn't waste his time and his players' energy to go to the field for a friendly.
To add to the confusion, many teams also did not pitch for fixtures and it was not clear who had sent out the message that the matches would not count as official matches because SAFA officials were not present at the venues.
It is also still unclear whether SAFA will uphold the decision of classifying the matches as friendlies or will make them official.
SAFA Makana coordinator, Akhona Heshu, who was attending the referees workshop at the time scheduled for the start of the matches, said they decided to classify the matches as friendlies because there were many teams who failed to pitch for their fixtures.
He said that he hoped that the teams who made it to the venues would understand.
He added that not everyone got the memo about the start of the league.
He accepted that there had been a lack of communication with the clubs, though he said the blame lay with the clubs themselves for not attending meetings.
The season is now expected to start officially this weekend.
