South African Masters and Legends Football Association (Samlfa) president Jacob ‘Buddha’ Mathathe has made a startling revelation about how the 2010 Bafana Bafana World Cup squad was denied an opportunity to encourage the class of 2026 during the recent showpiece in Mexico.
Bafana qualified for the recent World Cup 16 years after their last qualification, having previously been the hosts in 2010.
Playing the opening match in Mexico created a sense of déjà vu from the 2010 fixture between South Africa and Mexico, which took place on the exact same date: June 11. The SA Sports Minister, Gayton McKenzie, ensured that the class of 2010 played their World Cup opponents in a dress rehearsal match leading up to the 2026 opener.
In the grand scheme of things, the presence of the class of 2010 in Mexico was expected to serve as encouragement to the current group on how to approach the opening game of the World Cup, and what it would take to surpass the 2010 1-1 draw.
While the result of the dress rehearsal match was expected to factor into that encouragement, the two groups were still expected to meet, especially given the fact that they were based in the same location in Mexico. But that wasn’t to be, with Bafana losing 2-0 to Mexico.
“In Pachuca, we were in the same base as Bafana,” Mathathe reecently revealed to IOL Sport. “In one of the breakfasts, Siphiwe Tshabalala and Reneilwe ‘Yeye’ Letsholonyane came to me – I was with Patson Banda, who was the team manager.
“We were eating. Tshabalala, pointing out through a window, said to me: ‘President, Bafana are there. Do something. It can’t be right that we are here, and we’ll go back home, without having spoken to the current Bafana players. Do something.’
“I spoke with the president (Safa president Danny Jordaan). But the legends never saw, met or encouraged them in Mexico.”
By the time Mathathe approached Jordaan, he wasn’t only wearing the hat of being a representative of the players, he was also an NEC member in good standing.
But leading up to Jordaan’s re-election as Safa president for an unprecedented fourth consecutive term, Mathathe was discarded from all association operations, as he didn’t stand for nomination for a return to the NEC, while Samlfa also didn’t stand for elections for another term as an associate member.
Before and after the elections, Mathathe spoke out publicly about how the elections were designed to suit Jordaan, stating that since Samlfa publicly endorsed his challenger Sandile Zungu, Jordaan did everything to silence them and remove them from the system.
Mathathe went as far as revealing that he had been labelled a rebel when he advised Jordaan to step down to preserve the integrity of Safa when he was charged with fraud against the association.
So in his explanation of what happened in Pachuca, Mathathe added why he believes that he has never been Jordaan’s favorite person from the onset.
“I don’t know whether that clears up my relationship with the president,” he said. “I am with legends – the class of 2010. They wanted to encourage the current Bafana team for the benefit of South Africa, but they never had that opportunity.”
