Committee on Sports Summons South African Football Association (SAFA) to Round Two of Discussions After Many Unanswered Question

The Portfolio Committee on Sport, Arts and Culture will invite to Parliament the South African Football Association (SAFA) in its quest to get the governance and finances of the association back on solid ground. SAFA appeared before the committee on Tuesday where it informed the committee that its finances were not sound and that they were working on challenges.

The Chairperson of the committee, Mr Joe McGluwa, said the serious issues that confronted the association necessitate that there be a follow up meeting. “We need a way forward to pull SAFA from the financial stress it is in. It concerns the committee that a lot of crucial details to many issues at SAFA are being withheld from Members. Importantly, we could not find a sense that issues were being dealt with proactively.”

Mr McGluwa said it worried the committee that SAFA lacked cogent programmes a challenge which has seen many aspiring footballers leave other provinces mainly to concentrate in Johannesburg.

Among the many challenges that the committee was informed included the lack of sponsors, salary disparities related to national coaches, lack of consequence management, lack of budget with such consequence as having liabilities far exceed assets, etc.

Mr McGluwa said the inability to generate revenue for the national association was worrisome and could spell disaster for provinces and regions of SAFA as many tournaments had been staged without any form of support.

“SAFA is not sustainable; SAFA cannot run its operations. This is the elephant in the room that all football loving people need to sort the mess out,” added Mr McGluwa.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Republic of South Africa: The Parliament.