Monday, 12th February 2007 at 5:44 pm

Parriera: Arrest that man!

FNB’s aborted campaign, the president’s address to parliament, general debate in the streets: crime is South Africa’s hot topic, the national chorus being that something must be done. Hats off to Home Affairs, then, for tracking down one of the country’s most notorious criminals - that villainous South American, Carlos Alberto Parreira.

It was the Sowetan (the bane of many a past national soccer coach) that picked up on Parreira having begun his highly-paid tenure without a work permit; now, three days later, Home Affairs have made it perfectly clear that should the Brazilian do anything that might be remotely construed as work, he’ll be arrested. That means no training sessions, no attending matches, and no football on television - a sly flick across to MTN Soccer Zone on SABC1 tonight, and the Home Affairs Special Forces will charge through the back door and cart Parreira off to prison.

“He is not even allowed to go to the stadium or take notes while watching TV because that amounts to work,” a Home Affairs spokesperson told AFP earlier today. Firm stuff, then, as the crackdown on crime begins. Parreira will be allowed to work just as soon as his work permit comes through (I’m going mid-2008, if he’s really lucky); dare one hope that the tough stance on crime will catch on, and that the idiots responsible for not getting the coach and his assistant a simple piece of documentation are tossed in jail? When you’re paying R3-million a month and forget the work permit, there’s a firing squad called for at the very least.