Home-based players labelled 'disadvantage for South Africa' by Bafana Bafana boss Broos

Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos has bluntly admitted that South Africa’s heavy reliance on home-based players puts the national team at a disadvantage on the continental stage.

Speaking after their AFCON 2025 Round of 16 exit to Cameroon, the Belgian coach pointed to the lack of top-level exposure among PSL players as a key issue.

South Africa bowed out of AFCON 2025 despite enjoying plenty of possession against Cameroon, who needed just four shots on target to score twice. For Broos, that ruthless efficiency is shaped by experience at the highest level, something he feels his squad lacks.

“There are teams at the Cup of Nations with players who play in Europe. We mostly don’t have them, and that is a disadvantage for South Africa,” Broos said.

He highlighted Cameroon’s youthful squad as an example, adding: “Cameroon is a brand-new team, and when you see where those players are playing, there’s a guy, the striker Christian Kofane, he’s playing for Bayer Leverkusen. He’s 19 years old.”

Broos believes the Premier Soccer League cannot replicate the intensity and pressure of elite European competitions. “I said from the beginning that the level of the PSL compared with the level we had in the last weeks is very different,” he explained.

The Bafana boss stressed that short-term solutions like international friendlies are not enough to close the gap.

“It’s not because you play once against Argentina or once against Ghana that suddenly your level will go up,” Broos said. “This is something else.”

According to him, consistent exposure at club level is crucial. “You can only close that gap when you have players who are also playing in very difficult competitions,” he noted, adding, “Let’s hope that players in the future have more opportunities to go to Europe and play in those very difficult competitions.”

Broos confirmed he will conduct a full review of South Africa’s AFCON campaign in the coming weeks, saying: “We have to prepare for the World Cup and see what went wrong… making comments now is not the time or the place.”