Football is one of the most popular sports nationwide, and in the Western Cape. There is hot competition in national and local leagues, and huge public support.
Nationally, SAFA - the South African Footballl Association - was formally readmitted to FIFA and international football in 1992, and on 7 July 1992 the senior national side won a friendly match against Cameroon in Durban in South Africa’s first post-isolation match as a unified, non-racial national team. The national squad, nicknamed Bafana Bafana (“The Boys”), immediately started competing against regional competition and late in 1992 recorded their first victory in a CAF-sanctioned match against Congo. In 1994 they shared the inaugural Four Nations Tournament – the first international event staged by SAFA - with Cote d’Ivoire, and won the trophy the next year. They became African champions for the first time in 1996 and lifted their FIFA world ranking to an all-time high of 16th.
Bafana Bafana’s meteoric rise in world football was recognised in that year when South Africa was awarded the FIFA/Coca-Cola Best Mover of the Year Award. In August 1997 Bafana Bafana became the first Southern African country to qualify for the FIFA World Cup finals and as African champions also qualified for the FIFA Confederations Cup which took place in Saudi Arabia at the end of 1997. In 1998 Bafana Bafana were runner’s up in the African Cup of Nations Finals and produced a commendable effort in France in South Africa’s World Cup debut but failed to proceed past the group stages. 1999 saw Bafana Bafana claiming the Afro-Asian Trophy when they triumphed over Saudi Arabia, and they went on to win the Mandela Inauguration Challenge for the second consecutive year. In 2000 Bafana Bafana claimed third place in the African Cup of Nations, and in July 2001 they qualified for their fourth successive Nations Cup and second World Cup finals. After a decade in international football South Africa’s national team has played almost 50 FIFA members from all six FIFA regions.