The South African Football Association (SAFA) on Saturday, 27 June 2015 concluded a fruitful NEC meeting which took critical and wide-ranging decisions.

The South African Football Association (SAFA) on Saturday, 27 June 2015 concluded a fruitful NEC meeting which took critical and wide-ranging decisions.

Among the crucial resolutions taken in a meeting held in Johannesburg were:

• The appointment of the new Technical Director (TD)
• Reporting a projected income surplus of R28.5 million for the year ending 2015.
• Taking control of the running of all School Football activities and doing away with SASFA
• Revisiting and approving the new National Teams calendar for the current year
• Unveiling the new Technical Centre which would become operational next month and
• The introduction of the vanishing spay within the local league matches.

In announcing former Bafana Bafana defender and captain Neil Tovey as the new TD on a 5-year contract, the chair of the Technical Committee, Anastacia Tsichlas said the panel was impressed by Tovey’s presentation and also took into consideration his track record within South African football.

Tsichlas said Tovey had played at the highest level, coached across the board from senior to junior and school level.

Among the TD’s responsibilities will be to oversee and speed up the roll out of the training of coaches across the country.

SAFA intends to train around 10 000 coaches annually and the new TD will supervise the acceleration of the development of coaches instructors to realise this goal.

He is mandated to improve and streamline the referees’ training programme in addition to the Youth Programme, Women football development among others.

“We feel he (Tovey) has sufficient experience to see through our Vision 2022 as he was part of the group of coaches who devised that broader and ambitious plan,” said SAFA CEO Dennis Mumble.

In another development, SAFA is expected to post a healthy surplus of R28.5 million in the current year. Last year, the Association realised a R10 million profit as part of its financial turn-around strategy and that figure is expected to triple this year.

This followed tight financial controls aided by a number of proactive initiatives, according to the chair of the Finance and Procurement Committee, Gay Mokoena.