South African Football Association CEO Russel Paul responded to an open letter written to them by former Ajax Cape Town striker Nathan Paulse.
READ: Nathan Paulse's open letter to SAFA
In his open letter, Paulse said president Danny Jordaan and SAFA should not take credit for Bafana Bafana's 1-0 victory over Egypt or suggest that the country is heading in the right direction. He further explained why the association should refrain from taking any credit, but Paul has since made a response.
"How do players get to a tournament? Somebody has to buy their plane tickets. Somebody has to spend money on a camp for them. Somebody has to arrange friendlies for them. They can't do it on their own," he said.
"We don't take credit for them being on the field of play, because they achieve that objective. The fact that [Lebo] Mothiba passed the ball to [Thembinkosi] Lorch [to score], we can't take credit for that. They constructed that with their head, looking at the gap, picking up the head etc. We can't take credit for that, but we need to be given credit for the fact that we have placed it in context. For Banyana Banyana we spent over R20 million in their preparations to get them to the World Cup. It's not money down the drain, it's money well spent, because we have placed those players on the world stage and created career opportunities for them. They did not wake up one morning and walk into a team and say 'I'm playing here'. Somebody had to go out and select them and we can go on and on about this process."