Banyana Banyana are set to defend their Wafcon crown without the services of their influential attacker Thembi Kgatlana.
The 29-year-old Tigres UANL player was left out of Desiree Ellis' 28-man preliminary squad that was named recently. Safa claims the experienced and versatile attacker asked to be excluded from the team owing to personal reasons. Neither the player nor the federation could give further details on the same.
South Africa legend Portia Modise has now urged Safa to do everything within its means to get Kglatlana into the squad.
She argues Ellis' team will not successfully defend their continental crown without the services of Kgatlana. Modise has further claimed it could have been a different case, suppose it were the men's national team, Bafana Bafana.
Kgatlana's reasons can be fixed
“I can tell you now, Banyana won't defend the Wafcon title without Thembi. The people at Safa must put pride aside and resolve the issue to make sure Thembi goes to Wafcon. I don't know Thembi's reasons, but I am sure it's something that can be fixed,” she told Sowetan.
“Banyana are weak without Thembi. It's a pity that in SA we don't want to admit when a player is a star; it was the same thing with me, people didn't want to acknowledge that I was a star, saying that was going to make me big-headed, and I sense the same thing with Thembi. This girl is a star, and we can't do anything without her, so Safa must sort her issues out before the tournament starts.
“I know that if this were a Bafana Bafana star, Safa was going to make sure everything is resolved,” Modise concluded.
Wafcon will be played in Morocco from July 5 to 26; South Africa have been placed in Group C alongside Ghana, Mali and Tanzania.
