South African Football Chief: Our players are a bunch of drunks

There are many reasons to explain why a national team is struggling to gain form. Perhaps it is coaching. Maybe it is a lack of training. Or it could just be that the players are too drunk to care.

The drunkenness explanation is one adopted by Irvin Khoza, the chairman of the South African organizing committee of the 2010 World Cup, when he expounds on why South Africa’s national team is not better.

About half of all players in the first division Premier Soccer League “are affected by alcohol,” Khoza, who is also chairman of the Orlando Pirates team, said in remarks quoted by the Sunday Independent.

“I know of a team who we (Pirates) played recently where five of the players were drunk and two had to be put on a drip,” Khoza said.

“Some of these players are with Bafana Bafana (national side) as we speak,” he added.

What? You aren’t supposed to show up for work drunk? I keep a drip next to my desk at all times. I knew I should have tried out for the Bafana Bafana. The only thing holding me back is an inability to play soccer, the fact I am not South African and a liver that is still recovering from the last World Cup. Come to think of it, my inability to play soccer really isn’t holding me back.