{"id":613618,"date":"2026-05-31T12:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T12:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/613618\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T12:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T12:06:17","slug":"south-africa-made-to-look-like-fools-after-world-cup-visa-issues-says-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/613618\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa made to look like fools after World Cup visa issues, says minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The team, nicknamed Bafana Bafana, are due to face Jamaica in a friendly in Mexico on Friday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They will then play in the World Cup opening match against Mexico, which is co-hosting the competition alongside the US and Canada, on 11 June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This Safa travel &amp; visa debacle is embarrassing &amp; grossly unfair towards the players &amp; coaching staff,&#8221; McKenzie also wrote on X. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A brief statement from Safa said it was &#8220;working around the clock to ensure that the team travels to Mexico City as soon as possible ahead of the opening match&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">According to South African news site TimesLive, efforts were being made to get the team US visas to allow the team to travel either later on Sunday or on Monday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Bafana Bafana squad and staff need permission to enter the US as they play their second World Cup game against the Czech Republic in Atlanta.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">South Africa is one of 10 African nations taking part in the expanded 48-team World Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The game against Jamaica will be Bafana Bafana&#8217;s last chance to get ready for the tournament, which they last appeared at when South Africa hosted the finals in 2010.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Their final home match on Friday &#8211; a 0-0 draw against Nicaragua that included a missed South African penalty &#8211; was described in some reports as &#8220;disappointing&#8221; and extended their winless run to four games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The team, nicknamed Bafana Bafana, are due to face Jamaica in a friendly in Mexico on Friday. They&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-613618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}