adminJOHANNESBURG. — The South Africa senior women’s soccer team has been awarded a R1 million bonus for qualifying for the 2016 Olympic Games. Banyana Banyana earned a spot at the global showpiece after edging Equatorial Guinea 1-0 in their final qualifier in Bata on Sunday.
Team sponsors Sasol and SAFA both chipped in R500 000 to reward Vera Pauw’s charges for their achievement. “The R1 million will be split amongst the players alone, and we as the association will take care of the technical staff,” says SAFA CEO Dennis Mumble.
Banyana Banyana coach Vera Pauw says she has already started planning for the team’s participation at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Banyana qualified for the event for the second time in a row after edging Equatorial Guinea 1-0 in Bata on Sunday, earning a R1-million bonus in the process.
And while Pauw acknowledges the significance of their achievement, she is mindful of the task ahead. “We are absolutely ecstatic on the win. Credit to all staff who are always working tirelessly for the players. These smiles will not go off our faces soon,” Pauw said.
“We deserved to enjoy this magic moment. Now the real work begins. We have already designed our preparation framework and our first planning meeting takes place immediately after the press conference on Wednesday.”
Meanwhile, the senior men’s side Bafana Bafana had to spend a large portion of their 16-hour layover on the way back from their Central American tour in tiny rooms with bunk beds.
The team emerged from the tour with a 1-0 win and a 1-1 draw against Costa Rica and Honduras respectively and one could say that football-wise it was a relatively successful trip.
However, administratively it was a bit of a nightmare from start to finish, with both legs of the journey suffering mishaps.
Initially the team’s transit visas for the United States got mixed up prior to their departure, which meant the team had to fly to Costa Rica via Panama and Brazil, arriving shortly before their game.
Things didn’t improve from there with the return flight also suffering complications and Shakes Mashaba’s charges only returning last week Saturday, which in turn meant that a number of PSL fixtures had to be postponed.
The latest news reaching the Siya desk is that not only did the players have to endure long travel periods but after landing for a layover in Sao Paulo on their return home at 3am in the morning, they had to sleep in bunk beds.
Players had to share rooms with each other and were booked into FastSleep rooms which consist of one bunk bed and small TV during their 16-hour layover, while coach Shakes Mashaba left the team in Honduras and caught a flight home the day before. — KickOff.com-Laduma.
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