SPEECH BY FANYANA SIBANYONI, CHAIRMAN OF THE TECHNICAL COMMITTEE AT THE SAFA TECHNICAL SYMPOSIUM - OVERVIEW OF THE OBJECTIVES

SAFA President

Vice President

Members of the Technical Committee

Chief Executive Officer

Ladies and gentlemen, friends, football practitioners from across the country, it gives me great pleasure to bring you compliments of the New Year from the Technical Committee of the South African Football Association (SAFA).

As you are no doubt aware, the mandate of the Technical Committee is to perform policy oversight over coaching and other technical aspects of South African football. In this regard, we as a committee are particularly concerned about the decline that the President of SAFA has alluded to. It is therefore our core responsibility to ensure that the situation we find ourselves in is turned around as soon as possible.

We have to formulate a systematic strategy to ensure that our national team achieves the objective of becoming number one on the continent and top 20 in the world by 2014. Performing well at home in the 2013 AFCON and qualifying for the 2014 FIFA World Cup are necessary steps for the achievement of these objectives.

We also need to do everything we can to provide technical and resource support to the Banyana Banyana Olympic Team as well as the Under 17 Girls team currently participating in the 2012 FIFA World Cup Under 17 qualifiers.

The Technical Committee is also very pleased with the current negotiations with KNVB which are aimed at mobilisation of resources for the training of coaches for grassroots women's football.

The Technical Committee is therefore thrilled by the decision of the Association to convene this symposium. I believe that this is the first necessary step towards the realisation of the stated objective to create a rich pipeline of talent for our national teams.

The people gathered here are best placed to conduct an honest assessment of our game and offer advice on how to address the identified challenges.

As you know, this is not the first intervention of this kind. I think however, the problem with previous initiatives is that the Association did not maintain interaction with coaches, high performance centres, former players, former coaches and other technical experts.

We have now created a comprehensive database with your email addresses, mobile numbers and commit to maintain regular communication with you after this symposium.

We have also established a Technical Team comprising representatives of the University of Johannesburg, the Technical Director and the HOD: Academies. The role of the Technical Team will be to collate the inputs that will be produced here and follow up with further research and collection of submissions from participants after the symposium.

I am also pleased to report that earlier this week, we had a very productive meeting with representatives of the PSL regarding how to share technical information about players and improve the call up process. The President will make a detailed announcement about this matter at the appropriate time.

I would also like to extend a special word of welcome to representatives of Ryan Paterson and the delegation from Amisco. The new relationship between Amisco and the Association could not have come at a better time. It is common knowledge that in order for us to compete with and beat the best, we have to utilise the latest and best technical tools available. We therefore look forward to your presentation.

To Mr. Joerg Daniel and Mr. Thorsten Becht of the DFB - a very warm welcome to South Africa. Thank you for setting aside your valuable time to share the experiences of the German Talent Identification System with us.

To the rest of the symposium delegates, please feel free to engage with us critically, constructively and openly. After all, we are all members of the same family with one objective - to create and sustain success for our national teams.

Thank you