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Cape Town - Former Bafana Bafana defender Matthew Booth believes the blame for South Africa’s persisting football woes lie squarely at the feet of the administrators in power.
Speaking to Sport24, the recently-retired defender insisted that football always needs to be looked at through a socio-political lens.
For years there have been unanswered calls for SAFA to adopt a bottom-up approach to football development.
“Unfortunately what happens with democracies is that the leaders tend to surround themselves with their cronies and their lackeys, so it is very difficult to penetrate that structure and create real change,” he said.
“Unless there is a natural disaster or some type of earthquake under SAFA house when the executives are meeting you are not going to get change. The small fry, like you and me, can’t get depressed about it, we have to affect change where we can.”
Booth suggested that South African football is hampered by greed and corruption, but he still has hope that this will change.
“I certainly wish that we had more socialists in SAFA or in charge of our football to spread the charity a bit wider.”
When asked about his ideological leanings he was more diplomatic, saying: “I think that there is a time to be a socialist and a time to be a capitalist. But certainly when it comes to trying to spread the word I am a socialist in that regard, when it comes to football.”
