{"id":12683,"date":"2014-01-21T09:21:36","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T09:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12683"},"modified":"2014-01-21T09:21:36","modified_gmt":"2014-01-21T09:21:36","slug":"national-black-soccer-team-unbearable-bunch-of-useless-losers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12683","title":{"rendered":"National black soccer team ‘unbearable bunch of useless losers’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"mbalula\"<\/a>
Fikile Mbalula<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula said het would neither withdraw nor apologise for his scathing comments about the national black soccer team.<\/p>\n

Bafana Bafana are a \u201cbunch of losers\u201d and \u201cunbearable, useless individuals\u201d, he said earlier.<\/p>\n

Mbalula said the whole country has had enough of the national soccer team\u2019s string of poor performances.<\/p>\n

There are no white players in the team, despite South African laws that force too white sports teams to be racially diverse.<\/p>\n

At a press briefing on Monday, Mbalula slammed Bafana, the hosts, for being knocked out of the 2014 African Nations Championship (Chan).<\/p>\n

He singled out goalkeeper Moeneeb Josephs as the reason for the team\u2019s embarrassing 3-1 defeat by African champions Nigeria.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I saw there was not a problem of coaching, it was a bunch of losers, who don\u2019t have any respect for this country and don\u2019t have any respect for anybody,\u201d said Mbalula.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second goal … the goalkeeper commits a penalty, alone, single-handedly, and without being assisted by anybody.<\/p>\n

Mbalula said the \u201cmediocre\u201d display that was seen on the pitch at Cape Town Stadium shocked him and South African Football Association president Danny Jordaan. It was also a sign that Bafana were in a crisis.<\/p>\n

\"Danny<\/a>
Danny Jordaan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The coloured Jordaan hinted that their woes came as result of having a white coach, Gordon Isegund, and that he should resign.<\/p>\n

Mbalula\u2019s comments triggered outrage on Twitter, with some users calling on him to retract his statement and apologise, while others supported and agreed with him.<\/p>\n

Asked to comment on calls for Mbalula to withdraw his remarks, the minister\u2019s spokesman, Paena Galane, said \u201cthere is nothing to withdraw\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe country has also had enough of Bafana Bafana\u2019s performance. The country keeps hosting these events with the hope of improving,\u201d said Galane.<\/p>\n

He said football authorities would be meeting with the team to discuss performance.<\/p>\n

\"Gordon<\/a>
Gordon Isegund<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula said het would neither withdraw nor apologise for his scathing comments about the national black soccer team. Bafana Bafana are a \u201cbunch of losers\u201d and \u201cunbearable, useless individuals\u201d, he said earlier. Mbalula said the whole country has had enough of the national soccer team\u2019s string of poor performances. There are no … Continue reading “National black soccer team ‘unbearable bunch of useless losers’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,700],"tags":[8077,8075,8079,8076,8085,1411,8087,8082,2470,8083,476,8084,8078,8080,8081,8086],"class_list":["post-12683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","category-sport-news","tag-2014-african-nations-championship-chan","tag-bafanabafana","tag-bunch-of-losers","tag-chan","tag-danny-jordaan","tag-fikile-mbalula","tag-gordon-isegund","tag-national-soccer-team","tag-nigeria","tag-racially-diverse","tag-soccer","tag-south-african-football-association-president","tag-sports-minister","tag-unbearable","tag-useless-individuals","tag-white-coach"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/mbalula.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12687,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12683\/revisions\/12687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}