11 February 2023 – The South African Football Association (SAFA) wishes to state that no final decision has been taken on Banyana Banyana’s participation in this month’s Turkish Women’s Cup.
SAFA has consulted widely on this important matter following the devastating earthquake that left thousands dead and many more injured or missing in Turkey and neighbouring Syria a few days ago.
World football governing body FIFA gave the greenlight to the tournament in Alanya, Turkey, in a letter sent to all the participants on 10 February 2023. The participating teams are: Bulgaria, Estonia, Kosovo, Hong Kong, Jordan, North Macedonia, Slovenia, South Africa, Uzbekistan and Zambia.
“In accordance with article 7 of the regulations, FIFA is happy to provide official authorization for this women’s tier 1 international tournament. Should you need to make any subsequent changes to the match details, please immediately contact FIMA,” part of the letter said.
While the tournament is going ahead, the safety of our players and officials is very important to us and SAFA has continued to carry out its mandate in a mature and responsible manner.
We have engaged extensively and had discussions with the Director for Member Associations, in particular the European MA manager. We engaged our own government as well as the Turkish Ambassador.
We consulted the organisers of the Turkish Women’s Cup a number of times and also had discussions with Zambia, who are our neighbours and one of the participants in the Turkish Women’s Cup.
All this feedback will be given to the team in camp, and a final decision on whether to travel to Turkey or not will be announced.
We hope this clarifies the matter as gossip develops a false narrative.
