Official calls SA team 'a bunch of losers'

South Africa's players are "a bunch of losers" and the former World Cup host's national team is in a state of crisis, the country's outspoken sports minister said on Monday.

Fikile Mbalula, often a vocal supporter of South African sports teams, launched his stinging and surprising criticism of Bafana Bafana a day after it lost 3-1 to Nigeria and was eliminated at home in the group stage of the lower-level African Nations Championship.

"What I saw was not a problem of coaching - it was a bunch of losers," Mbalula said. "Their performance was not even lackluster, it was useless. The mediocrity that was displayed yesterday ... we must never wake up to that again."