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Cape Town - "If they have no bread let them eat cake," was queen Marie Antoinette's message to the peasants in France before going on to be executed at the guillotine during the French Revolution in 1793.
It is a thought that comes to mind, with the potential beheading of president Danny Jordaan's SAFA administration if their much-vaunted "Vision 2022" blueprint comes to naught with not only the failure of Bafana Bafana to reach the World Cup semi-finals in 2022, but the possible failure to even qualify for the tournament in Qatar after landing a particularly tricky draw for the five places designated by FIFA for the African continent.
The "Vision 2022" blueprint, hastily pieced together after the disappointment of the failure to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, also suggests that Bafana will systematically improve from a current world ranking in the 70s to the top 20 by 2022 - as well as gaining a place among the three or four leading countries in Africa.
Neither of these propositions seem viable should Bafana fail to make it into the 2022 World Cup Finals, with South Africa first needing to head a World Cup qualifying group that includes imposing Ghana, the dangerous Zimbabwe and an Ethiopian combination that cannot be taken for granted.
Should Bafana head the group, they would, in all probability come up against one of top-ranked countries in Africa in a home-and-away encounter, with teams of the calibre of Senegal, Nigeria, Egypt, Tunisia and the Ivory Coast all likely to be waiting in the wings.
And failure to qualify for Qatar will certainly raise the question as to whether "Vision 2022" was no more than a diversion and pie in the sky - and what happens today and tomorrow and not in eight years’ time being the priority.
