Fifteen years ago, the Bafana Bafana squad was filled with an array of stars plying their trades in various leagues across Europe, but the export rate has since become one of the country’s biggest challenges.
Vilakazi believes the low frequency of players moving abroad, and actually doing well enough to stay there, is down to individual passion and hunger, which he feels has dropped significantly from when he was playing.
“Nothing much has changed except the players’ desire and determination because, from where I’m sitting, they don’t seem to have that hunger to really play,” Vilakazi tells snl24.com/kickoff.
“Football is meant to be what they want and what they love, but they don’t show it and it seems it’s fading away… When I look back to the guys I was playing against, as well as my former teammates, they had a certain hunger for football. If I look at the youngsters today, I wish I could see myself in them.”
Meanwhile, ‘Tso’ also believes fraud and corruption within the game may be the reason behind the likes of Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates struggling to find their feet by making poor signings.
“I know some people will fight me and some will agree – I’m not 100 percent sure, but my thinking is that agents are interfering in terms of team selections and players being signed by the teams,” he adds.
“Because you’ll find that a coach is under, for example, Vilakazi’s agent and so the coach will have to sign me and play me. I think, from where I’m sitting, it’s causing plenty of confusion in our football."