South Africa head coach Hugo Broos has blamed his team’s early exit from the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) on the fact that most of his players do not play in Europe.

He highlighted the significant quality gap between the South African league and European leagues, where many of their opponents’ players are based.

“When you see all those teams you named now [at the AFCON], those are teams with players who play in Europe. We don’t have them, and that is a disadvantage for South Africa,” Bruce told Newsroom Afrika in an interview.

“Cameroon has a brand-new team because Eto’o changed everything, and when you see where those players are playing, there’s a guy, the striker Christian Kofane; he’s playing for Bayer Leverkusen. He’s 19 years old.”

PSL level not strong – Broos

Broos has urged his players to move to the top European leagues to gain the experience needed for future tournaments, noting that the South African league is not very competitive.

“I said from the beginning that the level of the PSL [South African league] compared with the level we had in the last weeks is very different, and you can only close that gap when you have players who are also playing in very difficult competitions,” he added.

“So let’s hope that players in the future have more opportunities to go to Europe and play in those very difficult competitions and face those challenges, because that should help this team enormously.”

Hugo Broos and Bafana Bafana reached the semifinals at the 2023 edition in Ivory Coast; however, their 2025 campaign was disappointing, as they suffered two defeats — 1-0 against Egypt in the group stage and 2-1 to Cameroon, who knocked them out in the round of 16.

The team will now turn its attention to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, where they are drawn in Group A alongside co-hosts Mexico, South Korea, and a yet-to-be-determined European team.

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