Johannesburg – Sacked Safa deputy president Thamsanqa Gay Mokoena has dribbled his way to court to challenge the football body’s decision to red card him in April for allegedly leaking sensitive information to the media.
Mokoena, who was appointed Safa acting CEO for four months, was dismissed from the organisation after being accused by Safa president Danny Jordaan of leaking the handover report he authored for his successor Tebogo Motlanthe to the media.
The Mpumalanga-based administrator filed papers in the Joburg High Court last Friday in which he is pleading with the court to review and set aside his expulsion as “irrational” and “unreasonable”.
Narrating the story in his founding affidavit, Mokoena said he was elected Safa vice president on June 3, 2018, after being elected to the national executive committee of the organisation at an elective conference on May 26 the same year.
He said Jordaan had asked him to act as Safa CEO from November 2019 to15 April 15 last year. When his term of office as acting CEO expired, he then penned a handover report in which he incorporated the organisation’s financial affairs and overall administrative records.
He said he handed the report over to Jordaan and the NEC members so that it could be ventilated in their next meeting.
“On 28 April 2020, the president of Safa wrote an email to myself and other NEC members alleging that after an investigation it was established that I leaked my report to the media and with no evidence that the NEC had taken a resolution to conduct such an investigation,” read the papers.
He said Motlanthe wrote a letter to the NEC members, despite possessing no powers to do so, asking them to deal with the report and consider putting him on precautionary suspension.
Motlanthe, he added, announced on various media platforms later that he had been dismissed from his position as the organisation’s vice president. Afterward, Motlanthe sent a letter to NEC members stating that as per the resolution of June 20 last year, he was dismissed from his position as vice president.
He said surprisingly, he received a letter from Safa on August 24 last year asking him to explain why he should not be placed on precautionary suspension.
He said when his lawyers wrote back to Safa disputing the validity of the resolution to remove him and minutes of such meeting, the organisation refused to co-operate.
He said he was shocked when he received a letter from Safa on November 19, informing him that he had been suspended from his position.
He said he requested arbitration and paid a R20 000 fee for it but Safa said his request for it was premature and decided to haul him before a disciplinary hearing. When he challenged the decision, Safa proceeded in his absence, with the hearing, which was chaired by Nazeer Cassim and then fired him.
He said the hearing was unlawful because only Safa’s national disciplinary committee and not the Safa NEC and Cassim had powers to conduct it.
“Safe to say that the entire procedure is undertaken that led to my dismissal was unconstitutional and the first respondent did not adhere to their own statutes, hence the chairperson did not have jurisdiction to conduct a disciplinary hearing, let alone an arbitration hearing.”
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