KickOff.com engaged the former coach of Bafana Bafana, Kaizer Chiefs, Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns – among the teams he has coached since 1985 in South Africa, to elaborate on his comments over the weekend that football on the local front is putting fans to sleep.

The 73-year-old, of Romanian origin, is adamant that local football is far from entertaining.

Dumitru explains: “I think you have to link this with the lack of technical leadership for some years. If you don’t have technical leaders in the country, you are subject to influences that might be harmful to your game.”

In simple terms, Dumitru bemoans the direct football local teams play while he argues the country has a lot of “skilful” players.

“When it comes to styles of football, you cannot globalise it; the examples are Spain, Germany, Brazil, and etcetera. If you go to these countries and tell them they have to globalise their game, they will laugh at you and show you the door,” Dumitru says.

“There are countries that didn’t have strong technical leadership and they made a wrong turn, such as South Africa. Instead of looking at traditions that are very valuable for instance creativity, decisive dribbling and quick combinations of short passing, South Africa threw away all this. Then South Africa, because of influences, adopted direct and predictable football.

“We have paid the price and it is a huge, huge price. We paid dearly and all of us are suffering,” he laments.

Dumitru insists that local teams “don’t play football; instead we just kick the ball”.

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