Soccer
SA needs white soccer players
2010-07-20 17:23
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Leslie Sedibe (Gallo Images)
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Cape Town - Soccer bosses want white South Africans to take more of an interest in playing soccer, saying it will make the game "more interesting and lively".
"We want to see people like Andy Karacinski and all those white football players we used to see in the 80s," SA Football Association (SAFA) chief executive Leslie Sedibe told MPs on the portfolio committee on sport and recreation on Tuesday.
"It makes it interesting. It makes it lively.
"If we are going to succeed we are going to need the support... We need to create that appetite."
Sedibe said the non-participation of traditional Model C schools and white schools in soccer was a problem for SAFA.
"Many of these schools are simply not interested," he said.
"As a united South Africa, it is important that we begin to mobilise schools and make sure they take part."
He had heard from a parent that soccer was not allowed at their child's Afrikaans school in Magaliesburg.
That was something he wanted to change.
"We can't continue on that basis."
SAFA president Kirsten Nematandani said there had been an exciting response from "the Afrikaans speaking public" after the World Cup.
"There was a very exciting response from the public, particularly the Afrikaans speaking public, which was rare in past," he said.
