South Africa wants to play an African Nations Cup qualifier against Egypt, despite rumors that Egypt is asking for the match next month to be postponed due to the recent upheaval in the North African country. The South African Football Association (SAFA) said it was continuing preparations for the match as normal. Egypt's football association is reportedly planning to send a letter to the Confederation of African Football (Caf) tomorrow to ask for the game to be postponed to June because of the recent political unrest in the North African country. But Safa communications director Morio Sanyane said yesterday the request would be strange as the match was meant to take place in SA on March 26, and not in Egypt. “In matters like these, Fifa and Caf do not usually postpone matches,” Sanyane said. “They usually take matches like these to neutral venues if the home team is unable to meet guarantees around security. “In this case the match is not in Egypt and will take place in SA. Anyway, what we know is that the game is still on.” Sanyane said Safa had elected to continue with preparations to host Egypt because there had been no word yet from Caf. “This whole thing is like rumor administration, really. The fact is this is not a friendly match and in terms of protocol, they are supposed to consult Caf and not the media. “We can only be advised by Caf and nobody else. Until there is official correspondence from Caf, we are continuing with our preparations as originally planned.” The unrest in Egypt led to the indefinite suspension of the North African country's league program and even an international friendly against the United States that was supposed to be held in Cairo last month was canceled. “The team must have suffered a dip in form after the league was halted, so we want to put off the game with SA,” Egypt's assistant coach, Hamada Sedki, was quoted as saying yesterday. It remains to be seen whether Caf will oblige. The Bafana Bafana are top of Group G while the Egyptians are surprisingly rooted to the bottom of the standings. A defeat for Egypt in SA would all but end their chances of qualifying for the 2012 tournament to be jointly hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. BM
