1 November 2019 – The SAFA NEC met with the Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture last week, to provide the Minister with the Association’s own report card on Vision 2022, which was well received by the Minister.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the Minister indicated a need to further unpack the presentation with SAFA, upon his return from abroad – and SAFA welcomes this opportunity to engage with the Minister in this regard.
Following various subsequent interactions with the Ministry and Department of Sport, a SAFA Extraordinary NEC meeting was called to discuss the Ministers proposed Ministerial Indaba and how SAFA would be able to drive forward with the Minister.
At the conclusion of deliberations by the NEC at SAFA House on Thursday, 31 October 2019, noting in particular the provisions of the FIFA Statutes which prevent a third party interferences in football, notably Articles 14, 15 and 19 and in particular wording of Article 14 which reads that Member Associations have the following obligations:
- 1 (i) To manage their own affairs independently and ensure that their own affairs are not influenced by any third parties in accordance with art.19 of these Statutes.
- 2 Violation of the above-mentioned obligations by any member association may lead to sanctions provided for these Statutes, and
- 3 Violations of par. 1 (i) may also lead to sanctions, even if the third-party influence was not the fault of the Member Association concerned. Each member Association is responsible towards FIFA for any and all acts of the members of their bodies caused by the gross negligence or wilful misconduct of such members.
In light of all of the aforementioned and legal counsel provided, the NEC unanimously resolved that:
The Association has had more than 1 Indaba before, and as such will continue exploring these opportunities to engage stakeholders, and as such, it is Football (SAFA as the custodian and governing body of football in South Africa, recognized by FIFA) that must drive this process (as its done before) and Government will and should be invited as an important stakeholder to participate in such Indaba if necessary and approved by the SAFA Congress.
Under the circumstances, noting all of the above, and until such time as further engagement takes place between SAFA and the Minister, as undertaken by the Minister at the earlier meeting with the NEC, SAFA cannot see its way clear to participate in an Indaba that will effectively be controlled and owned by a third party. Therefore, the SAFA NEC further resolved that no SAFA members shall participate in the proposed Indaba in its current format, as called by the Minister and anyone who does this (attend) will be in breach of the SAFA and FIFA statutes.
SAFA therefore awaits the return of the Minister to South Africa, to further engage with him on the proposed Ministerial Indaba, and in an effort to drive the process forward of working towards a collaborative framework for the better of football in South Africa.