Hugo Broos is not a man to mince his words and has now addressed another issue publicly after Mamelodi Sundowns scheduled a vaccination for Thabiso Kutumela during the international break.
The Belgian coach confirmed that the player will not be able to travel to Ethiopia with the team after receiving his vaccination on Monday, which could have him show side-effects when they travel to Ethiopia.
“Yesterday, Sundowns organised a vaccination for Thabiso Kutumela,” he told reporters.
“I have nothing against vaccination because it is a very important thing if you are vaccinated. But what I’ve something against is the timing.
“Go to a vaccination during a camp? The FIFA rule say that after the last game, they have to release their players. No activity is possible during a FIFA period in the club.
“But they organize the vaccination. And again, I’m not against the vaccination, but because of the fact that the Thabiso was not there yesterday, he couldn’t refuse it, his club pays him so he has to do it, but because it was not there, for some other reasons, had to change all my program yesterday morning.
“No meeting with the players because all the players were not there, no photo, and so on and so on.”
“And secondly, and that is the most important reason why I was angry. If you get a vaccination, you can have symptoms. So it’s possible that the day after tomorrow Thabiso shows symptoms of flu, or symptoms of fever, cough, whatever.
“So I can’t take him with me to Ethiopia.”
Broos also spoke about the non-show of Goodman Mosele once more, saying he’s never experienced a player going AWOL for an international camp before.
“And then something that I never saw in my life as a coach or as player, a player who don’t come to the camp, Goodman Mosele was selected for those games against Ethiopia.
“He didn’t even come to the camp. He didn’t left a message, he is unreachable. So we try to phone him because we don’t know what the reason is why he wasn’t not there. So I had to replace him.
“And it was a big surprise to me that the player don’t go to camp of a national team.”
He insisted club’s need to support him as coach and the national team better, if they want to see Bafana successful in future.
“So I have the feeling a little bit that club level in this country is more important than than Bafana Bafana,” he continued.
“But clubs have to understand that directly, directly your advantage if it is good with Bafana Bafana, the value of the players are increased when you have a good national team.
“I know what I’m talking about, see what happens in my country 15 years ago, nobody wanted a Belgium player, now everybody wants a Belgium player.
“So directly, they are advantaged the clubs. The interest in South African football will increase what is going on with with the national team.
“Now in Europe where we are speaking about African football, we’re speaking about Senegal, about Cote d’Ivoire, about Nigeria about Ghana. Never we speak about South Africa, never!
“So if you have a good national team, you will be sure that everyone will begin to have interest in South African football, sponsoring, who’s interested in sponsoring South African football when there is no interest?
“So everybody is at advantage if Bafana Bafana is doing well. So I hope in the future that will change and that in the next months I will get more cooperation.”
