- Despite only making eight appearances for Bafana Bafana, retired footballer Tefu Mashamaite offers sage advice to SAFA.
- The 36-year-old wants SAFA to employ ex-players into the association as they are a benefit to soccer in the country.
- Mashamaite recently opened up his own sports agency called The Collective Sports Agency (TCSA).
Former Kaizer Chiefs and Bafana Bafana defender Tefu Mashamaite has offered advice to the South African Football Association (SAFA) on how they can change soccer for the betterment of the country.
SA's leading football body has for years come under scrutiny for the way they have dealt with administrative matters from failing to qualify for World Cups and Africa Cup of Nation (Afcon) tournaments, to not having cohesion with the Premier Soccer League (PSL).
Mashamaite had his own share of experiences with SAFA but instead of shining the light on what went wrong during his shockingly few call ups to the national team, he wants to help the organisation move forward.
Speaking exclusively to Sport24, Mashamaite says that former players should be entrusted by SAFA and given specific roles within the organisation.
"First of all, we need to get more former players involved in the running of SAFA, more especially with the likes of Lucas Radebe who represented our country in one of the biggest leagues," said Mashamaite.
"He gained so much experience. You will expect such personalities to be roped in because they have connections, they know so much.
"We know that in every organisation there is politics but at the end of the day, if the politics are going to overshadow the main objective of why that organisation was created, then it defeats the purpose."
Mashamaite astonishingly only made eight appearances for Bafana Bafana despite having a successful club career with Bidvest Wits, Chiefs and SuperSport.
During those call ups to Bafana Bafana, he noticed that there were things going wrong internally.
"In terms of structure… things like bonuses must be paid on time," the 36-year-old continued.
"The organisation… I just feel like we can do better. Just be consistent because like we went down since the 1990s and early 2000s.
"So, we need to reflect, where did we go wrong? And try to get those things in order for the benefit of our nation.
"Bafana Bafana is the pride of the nation. Soccer is a cultural thing. We really need to revive that spirit."
Bafana Bafana will be pictured back on the field this week in the Cosafa Cup for the first time since claiming a 3-2 win over Uganda in an international friendly last month.
Assistant coach Helman Mkhalele recently updated his squad for the tournament as he opted to relinquish Kaizer Chiefs players due to their CAF Champions League commitments.
South Africa take on Botswana on Tuesday (17:00) before facing ESwatini on Friday (15:00).
Their final Group A match will be against Lesotho (TBA).