In a press conference, the South African Football Association confirmed that Banyana Banyana have received a major financial boost to the sum of R16 million to prepare for the upcoming 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
SAFA CFO Gronie Hluyo said: “We received funding from FIFA to prepare Banyana Banyana for the World Cup. What we received from Fifa is $960 000 (R16m). That money is going to be used to prepare the team for the World Cup.”
Australia and New Zealand will host the tournament from Thursday, 20 July 2023 up until Sunday, 20 August 2023.
South Africa won their maiden WAFCON title in July 2022, earning a hard-fought 2-1 victory over hosts Morocco.
World-ranked at 54, Banyana were drawn in Group G, and their opponents will be Sweden who are currently third on FIFA’s rankings and were runners-up in 2003, while Italy (17th) reached the quarterfinal stage on two occasions and Argentina ranked 29th.
The financial boost will be welcomed as coach Desiree Ellis has a mountain to climb Down Under but these are some of the plans for the African Champions leading up to the showpiece.
“The first engagement that we will have is the Cyprus Cup. We will also have the pre-camp just before the Cyprus Cup.
“(We are targeting) opponents that are similar to our opponents that we will be playing in the World Cup,” Ellis said.
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