21 May 2021 – SAFA CEO Advocate Tebogo Motlanthe gave his 100 days Report Back on which he touched on various issues regarding the Association at a Press Briefing on Friday, 21 May 2021.
Flanked by SAFA Provincial Chairpersons, NEC members and Vice President, Gladwyn White, Advocate Motlanthe touched on staffing matters, sponsorship, finances, competitions and governance, among others.
Those in attendance at the Press Briefing were Mzimkhulu Fina (Eastern Cape), Letima Mogorosi (Free State), Jack Maluleka and Vincent Rampago (Limpopo), Aubrey Baartman (Northern Cape), Kwenza Ngwenya (KZN), David Molwantwa (North West) and Tankiso Modipa (Western Cape).
The Provincial Representatives including VP White spoke on the stability within the entire SAFA Provinces and programmes regarding football development.
On the Staffing Matters, Advocate Motlanthe announced that SAFA had appointed former Banyana Banyana player and manager Lydia Monyepao as the Association’s new COO. He also revealed that the Association had completed Section 189 and all staff had been placed within their respective areas of competence.
Advocate Motlanthe said the Association had shortlisted 3 candidate for the position of the Technical Director position and the interviews and appointment of the successful candidate will be made shortly.
Three major sponsors have been secured since Advocate Motlanthe took over as the CEO and these are ShowMax for the match officials, Le Coq Sportif, the new technical sponsors and the recently announced Women’s National League sponsors, Hollywood Bets in which the new league will be known as the Hollywoodbets Super League.
Advocate Motlanthe said SAFA’s finances had hugely stabilised and criticised those who still insisted that SAFA was financially struggling.
‘We have paid all our 52 Regions, our service providers and our finances are in good standing,’’ he said.
SAFA will soon introduce a robust new schools competition and in line with the new CAF leadership which has taken youth development, schools and women’s development as their main agenda, the Association will aggressively invest in these areas.
‘’At SAFA we have stepped up efforts to develop our women officials especially among match officials and we recently had a ground-breaking Women Referees workshop which brought together match officials from around the country. The ultimate aim is to make sure that women’s matches are handled by women,” he added.
On the Governance issues, Advocate Motlanthe said SAFA had established an independent Ethics Committee which made sure things were done by the book and anyone veering off will be brought to book.
The Ethics Committee is chaired by Judge Sisi Khampepe who is currently Acting Chief Justice while renowned legal guru, Alex Abercrombie is the Integrity Officer.
On the National Teams, Bafana Bafana will play Uganda in a friendly match on 10 June as part of their preparations for the upcoming FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Zimbabwe, Uganda and Ethiopia.
Banyana Banyana has been invited to the Netherlands for a friendly match on 3 July while the u23s are busy preparing for the Tokyo Olympics.
There has been misleading information regarding next year’s National Elections and the process is as follows:
There should be elections for the LFAs, followed by the Regional Elections and then the SAFA Congress will determine the date of the Elective Congress in 2022. The date for the submission of candidates’ names must be approved by the Congress and as things stand, no nominations and no candidates exist because there are processes that need to be undertaken.