ESPNsoccernet: Global

South Africa's FA (SAFA) has decided that it will not appeal against their failure to qualify for the African Nations Cup.

Pitso Mosimane has shouldered the blame (GettyImages)

• South Africa to appeal ANC failure

Bafana Bafana missed out on the continental championship in dramatic fashion when they drew 0-0 with Sierra Leone on October 1, thinking it was enough to get them through, when they actually needed to win.

South Africa, Niger and Sierra Leone all ended the qualification stage on nine points and CAF's rule 14.1 states that in the event of teams being deadlocked, their head-to-head records and not goal difference will decide who qualifies. Niger topped the resulting mini-league and so booked their tickets to Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

Following the blunder, SAFA announced the intention to appeal to CAF and went as far as saying the rules of the competition were "wrong", but their ungainly attempt to sneak into the continental championship through the backdoor was not met with support. The country's sports minister, Fikile Mbalula, lashed out at SAFA, calling the administration "disgraceful" and said someone should take responsibility with a resignation or, at the very least, an apology.

A day after ESPNsoccernet published the Minister's rant, SAFA president Kirsten Nematandani has obeyed. "As the president of the National Association, I would like to own up and say we are profoundly sorry for letting the nation down," he said. "The association believes that given the available resources and talent in South Africa, the failure was inexcusable. The failure by members of our technical team to acquaint themselves with some of the CAF rules is unacceptable and we will look into our internal structures to make sure people are held accountable and that such glaring errors are not repeated in future."

SAFA will implement a number of corrective measures, according to chief executive, Robin Petersen. The most notable of them will be to bolster the technical staff. "We are currently analysing our existing systems, structures, roles and responsibility matrices, as well as our operational checklists, to ascertain why things went wrong," he said. It is understood that an influential leading commentator told the national team's support staff that a draw would be enough to see them through and, when he relayed his information, coach Pitso Mosimane changed tactics and made substitutions to bulk up defence.

One of Mosimane's responsibilities was to ensure Bafana Bafana qualified for the Nations' Cup and, even though he has failed in that regard, he will keep his job.

Not content with leaving the appeal matter to rest, Petersen added that SAFA still believed rule 14.1 should be changed. "We have primarily sought to assert and show that Rule 14 should be reviewed and altered in the future, to prevent such situations happening again," he said. "We will submit our concerns around Rule 14 to CAF and ask them to address these at an appropriate forum." The head-to-head record is an acceptable form of separating teams in many global tournaments.

Meanwhile, South Africa's Premier Soccer League has refused to cancel the planned break in scheduling which was put in place to accommodate the team's participation in the ANC. In order to counter the break, SAFA is believed to be vying to put together a four-nation tournament. Although nothing has been confirmed, countries such as Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Malawi have been mentioned as possible participants. Bafana Bafana will play Ivory Coast in the annual Nelson Mandela challenge on November 12, but will then be idle until their World Cup qualifiers start next year.