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

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