Former Bafana Bafana goalkeeper coach Alex Heredia has suggested what he thinks will improve the quality of the glovemen in the Premier Soccer League.
Heredia says teams in the league should be banned from signing foreign goalkeepers.
Every PSL club, except Stellenbosch FC and of late Kaizer Chiefs, has a foreign goalkeeper, with the majority of them being first-choice stoppers.
“I think the first thing we have to do is to identify the problem,” said Heredia as per Sowetan Live.
“We have got the 16 teams in the PSL with the majority of them, about nine or 10, their number one goalkeepers are foreigners.
“One of the potential solutions is for the next several years, SA, Safa or whoever it is that is entitled to make the rules, to implement a law that doesn’t allow the use of foreign goalkeepers.”
SuperSport United’s Ronwen Williams is the Bafana captain and first-choice goalkeeper while one of his understudy keepers Bruce Bvuma does not command regular game time at Chiefs.
Hans Vonk remains the only South African shot-stopper to play at the highest level in Europe while in the books of Ajax Amsterdam and Heerenveen and played Uefa Champions League football with both clubs.
Heredia gave the Egyptian Premier League as an example for South Africa to emulate after the North Africans introduced measures barring clubs from signing non-Egyptian goalkeepers.
“We saw what happened in Egypt, no foreigner can play in the senior league and they produced a lot of quality goalkeepers,” Heredia said.
“Why not in SA? Stop bringing foreign goalkeepers in the PSL and the clubs will be forced to produce local goalkeepers. This is one alternative and my opinion.”
However, after adopting such measures in the 2009/10 season, Egypt found themselves with Essam El-Hadary coming out of retirement in 2014 to later on guard goal at the 2018 Fifa World Cup aged 45.
