19 November 2018 – SAFA’s Netcare First Aid Programme instructor, Thabo Maphoso, could not hide his joy over the practical application his students showed following a successful one-week first aid workshop, which took place in Cape Town.

It is in the knowledge that SAFA had taken the initiative to upskill members of communities from different LFAs in Cape Town with the necessary knowledge of how to save a life or apply the necessary steps when attending to an injured player that pleased Maphoso greatly.

Maphoso added that the Association should have more of these workshops, as this will see them helping to improve communities and football from the medical side of things.

“I do not know where to start in expressing how happy and proud I am of this group that I worked with. They were deeply interested in what was taught in class and wanted to grasp as much knowledge as they could. We held practical sessions as well and I was just amazed at how much they had learned.

“I would like to applaud SAFA for taking such a step in investing time and energy in the medical side of football, especially at amateur level” Maphoso added. “A player can easily lose his or her life on the pitch mainly because there is no one with the necessary skills to attend to them. Investing time is such projects helps because this will see us in having more people with the necessary skills to help address such issues on ground level”.

Maphoso also added that some of his students gathered as many notes as they could, stating that they promised him to pass on the knowledge they had learned in class to their respective communities.