Former Bafana Bafana head coach Owen Da Gama blames the South African Football Association for not doing enough to lure SuperSport United wonderkid Imire Okon to pledge his international allegiance to South Africa.
Okon was born in South Africa to a Nigerian father, so he is eligible to play for both Bafana and Nigeria, although SAFA has been dragging its feet on the matter.
The 20-year-old center-back is torn between representing Nigeria and his mother's place of birth South Africa.
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"I don't know who is running the database for SAFA at the moment, but when I was the national Under 23 team coach, and also when I was an assistant to Shakes Mashaba we had a database of players who qualified to represent South Africa through their parents and grandparents," Da Gama tells KickOff.
"I don't know how they are running their database at the moment, but I believe that if Nigeria can get the word of it before we are, then we need to pull up our socks you know.
"We must make sure we are on top of it because we are a first-world country here in Africa.
"We've got all the facilities, we've got the network working here, we've got all the facilities here, we should be on top of our game in knowing every possible player playing in the PSL and in the NFD.
"I don't think we doing enough scouting when it comes to that because I'm not seeing a lot of movement and information.
"We don't get a lot of news about it about, hey we are scouting this guy and he is playing in Holland.
"Like Lars Veldwijk, we picked up with Shakes Mashaba that this guy was playing in Holland and his father was a South African.
"And we immediately invited him to have a look at him, I think we should be on top of our game when it comes to any possibility of strengthening Bafana.
"I mean France and a lot of top teams in the world are doing it, even in England they are doing it.
"We should be on top of our game with any possible quality player, at the moment I don't think we doing enough of that.
"I think it got a lot to do with sustainability, we need to get a database, there's a lot of youngsters that are playing in Europe that are South Africans.
"We should be monitoring and following them to understand what is happening but we don't read enough of this.
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"Maybe SAFA is doing something, but we don't see much news about this, so I don't think we are on top of our game with such situations.
"I believe we can step up and be more professional in this regard."
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