'I felt betrayed and hurt': Janine van Wyk defends call to abandon Banyana after not getting her way

• The Banyana Banyana legend overtook Ahmed Hassan as the most capped African footballer of all time when she earned her 185th cap earlier this month.
• The push to get the last two caps to match and break the record were emotionally challenging for Van Wyk, who at some point left camp when she wasn't given game time to match the record.
• Van Wyk explains why she left and why it's not an accurate assessment to brand her antics as an act of a player who felt entitled.
• For more sports news, go to the News24 Sport front page.

Janine van Wyk opened up on the mental and emotional roller-coaster ride she went through when the record to be the most capped African footballer of all time was within reach, but it looked like she wouldn't get her hands on it. 

The former Banyana Banyana captain caused a stir in October when she abruptly left camp while the senior women's national team's qualification for the Olympics hung on a knife edge after playing to a 1-1 draw with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) away. 

Van Wyk left camp in a fit when the team returned to South Africa because she wasn't given a run as promised in Kinshasa, which would have seen her earn her 184th cap to tie with legendary Egyptian defender Ahmed Hassan who held the record for the most capped African footballer.   

The second leg at Orlando Stadium against the DRC would then have been Van Wyk's swansong at the mecca of South African football, surpassing Hassan's record and bowing out of the game in style. Instead, Van Wyk left her team to fend for themselves in the second round of the qualifiers with two more rounds after that in the campaign to book a ticket to Paris next year for the Games.

"I left camp because I felt a little bit betrayed and hurt," said Van Wyk in a virtual South African Football Journalists' Association's press conference.

She added:

"So, when we flew back, I just decided to go home because I had left so much in camp and didn't get in return what was planned for me. I didn't see the point to go to play the last match in Orlando and lose out on the record."

Van Wyk had spent over a year outside the national team fold when she was called up for the clash with the DRC. The South African Football Association (SAFA) made the announcement that she would play in the two games against the DRC to surpass the record, with the association saying the qualifiers "will be used as a send-off for Van Wyk".

SAFA's announcement was unprecedented as it came before Ellis named her squad for the match, and gave the impression she was being instructed to field Van Wyk. 

With the 36-year-old slower, and more competitive centrebacks like Bambanani Mbane – who was named in CAF's Team of the Year at the continent's premier awards on Monday – making the position her own, it made things tricky for coach Ellis to field Van Wyk for footballing reasons after such a long time away from the national team fold. 

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Even at the Women's Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon), held in Morocco in July last year, Van Wyk was a squad player, brought in for her experience to help the team in their march to become African champions for the first time, and not necessarily to play every match.

Van Wyk was sitting on 181 caps when she and the team arrived in Morocco. She featured only once in the six games Banyana played en route to winning the Wafcon for the first time in the country's history. Refiloe Jane wore the armband during that tournament. But when the team lifted the trophy, she did so with Van Wyk as a mark of respect for the longest serving member of the team who was still technically the team's captain. 

"It was already promised to me that at the Afcon, whether I start or not, it would happen (that I am given a chance to break the record)," said Van Wyk. 

"When something gets promised to you, you expect it. It's off course difficult because you see games play out, and whoever is playing in that position is doing well and the coach has to make a decision whether to put the team first (or help me reach my accolade), and I understood the coach putting the team first. 

"So, it already started then, knowing that you could get those caps in that tournament, and you start to think if I get those caps in that tournament how my career would look after it. Would I have prolonged my career until now to get the remaining caps or would I have retired on a very high note after receiving the caps and winning the Afcon had I received the four caps?" 

Van Wyk added: "So, walking away from camp is not something I would have done. I don't expect anyone to walk out of camp if things don't go their way. But there is so much that has happened, and I am not going to touch on it now because it will eventually come up, I felt mentally challenged and drained due to many reasons that people don't know about. 

"Off course people will say that Janine feels entitled, that she deserves these two caps. People don't know the full story. I am okay with that because people will assume things and look at the facts right now and not what has previously happened.

"I am not going to give you much, I am busy writing something and that story will come out eventually. Off course no player should feel entitled to represent their country, and walk away from camp, but I have my reasons why. That's all I can say now."

SAFA chief executive Lydia Monyepao, a former Banyana player herself, spoke with Van Wyk after her decision to leave camp. After the organisation and Van Wyk ironed things out, the defender was called up for Banyana's Wafcon qualifier against Burkina Faso where a place in next year's tournament, which will also be hosted in Morocco, was up for grabs. 

This time around, she was given a run. She matched Hassan's record on 30 November away. On 4 December, with her parents in attendance, Van Wyk became the most capped African footballer of all time as she started the game in Pretoria. 

She was substituted after eight minutes, with the plan having been to replace her on the fifth minute in ode of the No 5 jersey she wore with aplomb in an international career that began in 2005. Ellis could not make the substitution that exact moment as there was an injury to another Banyana player and she had to assess that situation first. 

"Right now, it all shines brightly and I have achieved this record. But I went through some challenging moments mentally before that," Van Wyk said. "Breaking the record now fulfills my career entirely." 

At the CAF awards held in Morocco on Monday, Van Wyk got to meet the man she had eclipsed as the most capped footballer of all time in the continent. "His words were, 'Finally someone has done it after such a long time.' He is a humble guy," she said. "We chatted for a while. He asked me about my career. It was a casual conversation. He was happy that after 11 years, someone broke his record."

Ahmed Hassan and Janine van Wyk.

Supplied

The final few months of Van Wyk's international career made her come across as entitled, and that the record-breaking caps were handed to her with her performance as a footballer and those playing ahead of her not justifying her place in the team. But she has worked for everything she has achieved with Banyana, with nothing handed to her. 

"Thandeka", as Van Wyk is affectionately known, is a two-time Olympian who was part of the Banyana trailblazers who played with Bafana Bafana hand-me-downs during their time, but fought hard on and off the pitch for the team and the women's game in the country to gain respect. 

For Van Wyk, part of that push to change things was because of the challenges and roadblocks she endured in her career. 

"I first met Janine van Wyk when she was 14," said former head of women's football at SAFA, Fan Hilton-Smith.

"I was coach of Banyana Banyana then. Her parents brought her to us to have a look. She was very talented and you could see that she was a special player. But we couldn't bring her to the national team set-up because at the time we only had an Under-20 team, we didn't have Under-17s. 

"We told her parents to bring her when she was slightly older. They did and that's how her national team journey started. She was among the first intake of the High Performance Centre which we established to fasttrack the development of women's football. She now holds a Uefa B Licence."

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Van Wyk also has a CAF B License. Her biggest contribution to the game, however, is one she made without the ball at her feet.

In 2012, Van Wyk and her business partner established the Janine van Wyk Girls Football Development Programme whose flagship brand is the JVW club which campaigns in the Hollywoodbets Super League.

The programme is the biggest organised girls football structure on the continent, including the JVW Girls School League, which according to JVW's website has over 160 teams participating and approximately 3 200 girls involved at school level. 

"It's been amazing to see the transformation of women's football happening," said Van Wyk.

"I wish I was 20 years old, coming into this era of women's football because I would feel like a Ronaldo like now, earning a lot of money and being successful. I wouldn't change anything though about my journey. Growing up, it was all about the love for the game, you play football for the pure joy of football and representing your country with honour and pride."