South African football legend Benni McCarthy on the current generation of SA players: They rush for front pages and are always on social media

Benni McCarthy has cited the advent of Social Media platforms as the reason South Africa’s talent is in the decline.

The South African football great, who is in charge of the Kenyan National football team, said the current crop of players are not as passionate for the game as his generation.

To this day the Cape-born striker still remains the only South African player to have won the UEFA Champions League, as he won it with Portuguese giants FC Porto in 2004.

McCarthy also remains the country’s all-time leading goal-scorer with 31 goals in 80 appearances for the national team.

“Our generation loved football more than being on the front page,” McCarthy told iDiski Times.

“We wanted to succeed, to play for the best teams in South Africa and eventually go to Europe. There’s just too much showboating. Players are more interested in social media platforms about how good they look in the kit rather than what it takes to help you win things.

“Everything you have comes because of football. So you have to respect that and dedicate yourself to your craft.

“Players today are probably more talented than we were. But they don’t dedicate themselves to their craft the same way.

“Today, you often see players focusing on their phones. I don’t want to be highly critical of players, but I think they need to seriously start to put football first more because the limelight, everything that you have, everything that’s coming to you is because of football.

“So, you need to respect that a little bit more and dedicate yourself to your craft. Train better, work harder, less time on Instagram and TikTok or create emojis, videos and all that.”