Deadman Walking

Bafana Bafana head coach Joel Santana's days are numbered it seems. Newly-elected Safa president Kirsten Nematandani has appointed SuperSport United coach Gavin Hunt and two former Bafana coaches, Clive Barker and Jomo Sono, to assess the team's performances. In other words, should Santana fail against both Norway and Iceland, he can virtually kiss his R1.4-million per month job goodbye.

"We have not made any judgments as yet. But we need to get Bafana back to their winnings ways and fast. Hopefully the input by messrs Sono, Hunt and Barker will assist the NEC to decide the way forward." - Kirsten Nematandani gives Santana assurance and thus the kiss of death.

"I have not spoken to Barker, Sono or Hunt but I am sure they will come to assist us. We as the new Safa leadership need to know what is going on at the ground level with Bafana," Nematandani adds.

It appears that Safa have had enough with the poor results and if Santana comes up short again he may be looking for another job.

It seems Premier League managers have a new tactic to employ whenever their highly-paid stars fail to do the business on the pitch and results are not to their liking — blame the referee. Manchester United chief Sir Alex Ferguson was the latest manager to launch a cowardly attack on a match official.

"He (Alan Wiley) was not fit enough for a game of that standard."

"The pace of the game demanded a referee who was fit. He was not fit. It is an indictment of our game. You see referees abroad who are as fit as butcher's dogs. We have some who are fit. He wasn't fit."

"He was taking 30 seconds to book a player. He was needing a rest. It was ridiculous." - Fergie lashes out at Alan Wiley after Man U were held to a draw against Sunderland. Fergie gets a taste of his own medicine

Officials, meanwhile, have leapt to the defence of the referee and branded Ferguson a bully over his latest verbal onslaught. They have even warned that Manchester United could face a backlash from outraged match officials

Is Fergie ready to be on the receiving end of his infamous hair-dryer treatment?

"It was a cowardly attack — Sir Alex wouldn't have said it to Alan Wiley's face," – Former England referee Jeff Winter claimed earlier in the week.

"Sir Alex won't care though. He's a knight of the realm and he thinks he's untouchable, bullet proof.

"But he's also a bully. He spoke at Sir Bobby Robson's memorial service a couple of weeks ago and said he'd learnt a lot from Sir Bobby. But he hadn't, they were totally different, Sir Bobby was a gentleman. He was humble and had respect for people."

"I think referees will be so incensed about this that Sir Alex may find that United no longer get the benefit of the doubt on certain decisions."

Opposition fans will be rejoicing over that last bit!

Find out what Joel Santana and Rafael Benitez have in common and more on page two!

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