The South African Football Association has released a statement after Bafana Bafana failed to qualify for the 2018 Fifa World Cup in Russia.

The South African national team’s dream of qualifying for the global tournament ended after they suffered a 2-0 defeat to Senegal in their penultimate Group D encounter at the Peter Mokaba Stadium on Friday.

Safa released the following statement, which reads:

‘The South African Football Association (Safa) is disappointed and feels the pain of the fans following the Senior Men’s National Team’s defeat in the Fifa World Cup qualification match for 2018 Russia last night (Friday 10 November 2017).

‘The failure by Bafana Bafana to qualify for the Fifa World Cup has now stretched to almost 15 years. The country last qualified for the Fifa World Cup in 2002 in Korea/Japan.

‘South Africa participated in the 2010 World Cup as a host nation.

‘We, therefore, understand the pain of the nation in the defeat of the team to Senegal on Friday.

‘We as an Association have embarked on a number of initiatives to produce players that can compete with the best in the world, and our establishment of Fun Valley as a national technical centre, the appointment of technical director Neil Tovey, and the achievements of our junior teams at international level, show our positive intent.

‘We are awaiting the finalisation of the World Cup campaign when Bafana Bafana play Senegal in Dakar on Tuesday, and will wait for coach Stuart Baxter’s technical report on the analysis of the team’s performance, the technical staff and the immediate future plans for the team.

‘We believe we have capable players to perform at the highest level, as shown in recent convincing wins over Nigeria and Burkina Faso.

‘Our junior national teams have been doing well, and we want to continue our aggressive development projects to build national teams that can compete on the global stage.

‘We believe we are on the right path.’