PSL takes responsibility for Broos' mistreatment during Orlando Pirates vs Mamelodi Sundowns match

The Premier Soccer League (PSL) has apologised to the South African Football Association (Safa) after Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos was denied access to watch the Orlando Pirates match against Mamelodi Sundowns on Saturday.

When Broos was announcing his final squad for the World Cup qualifiers on Monday, he revealed that he had been denied access to Orlando Stadium. The Belgian coach was with his assistant Cedomir Janevski when the incident occurred.

Unfortunate incident

"The Premier Soccer League today [on Monday] learned of an unfortunate incident in which the South African senior national team head coach was denied access to the DStv Premiership match between Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns on Saturday, 25 September 2021," PSL said in a statement.

"The incident is highly regrettable, and the league has apologised unreservedly to the South African Football Association for the unfortunate occurrence.

"The PSL immediately investigated the matter and established that the confusion was caused by the league's failure to inform the host club about the head coach's attendance as per protocol.

"Over the past two months, an arrangement has been in place between the League and Safa to allow the head coach to attend matches whenever he needs to while continuing to ensure compliance. The arrangement has functioned well until thus far.

"On this occasion, the League regrettably erred and will ensure that this does not occur again."

A shocked Broos had termed the denial of access as 'unacceptable': "We are coaches of the national team, and there is a team [Pirates] who don't allow us into the stadium to see a game of their team," the former Cameroon coach said.

"Most surprising is that the chairman of the team [Irvin Khoza] is the vice-president of Safa. I didn't believe it, so we have to go back.

"My assistant was there, so I phoned him and said 'come with us and come and see the game, SuperSport'. It is unacceptable, really unacceptable."

The Brazilians won the game 2-0 courtesy of Peter Shalulile's double.