Bafana Bafana head coach Gordon Igesund leaves for Cairo, Egypt tonight (Thursday, 9 May 2013) to attend a symposium to analyse the 28th and 29th Editions of the Orange Africa Cup of Nations (Gabon and Equatorial Guinea 2012 and South Africa 2013).

The gathering will take place from 11 – 13 May 2013 in the Egyptian capital and will be attended by coaches whose countries participated in the two Editions. Also in attendance will be the continent’s Technical Directors.

Igesund will be among the coaches that will make a presentation about football on the continent and will share his experience with other top coaches from across the African continent.

“I am hoping to represent South Africa well and show the outside world that we were and are always great hosts. But most importantly, I will promote our league structures and showcase how strong it is. I will talk about Bafana Bafana in relation to the AFCON tournament; what was missing from the whole tournament, not just our national team but what I think should be improved overall,” said Igesund.

Also invited to the top notch seminar is Spain’s head coach Vicente del Bosque, who is expected to share some of his experiences with the delegates.

Igesund will travel together with SAFA’s Acting Technical Director, Ms. Fran Hilton-Smith.

She will be among Fifty-four (54) Technical Directors in attendance at this ground breaking event. 

“I feel honoured to be attending this event and hope to draw lots of knowledge from this momentous gathering. I also intend implementing my findings from this conference at junior national team level. I am happy that we have been given an opportunity to attend this meeting of soccer greats from our continent,” said Hilton-Smith.

“Although I was not directly involved with our own national team, I worked with the team that helped put together the CAF Technical Report for the past tournament. In Egypt we will look at the methods and the formula successful teams use in tournaments so that we can in turn use this back home for our junior national teams,” said Hilton-Smith.

The duo returns to South Africa on Wednesday, 15 May 2013.