This week was one of Mzansi’s most embarrassing sporting weekends. Two incidents, which Mzansi will want to forget about quickly, really tainted the image and gave a bad advertisement of the local sporting scene.
The winners of last year’s Soweto Marathon came to the fore, crying foul – they are up in arms and have still not been paid their prize money for a race that took place almost three months ago, in November.
The runners have debts and families to feed, and they are in tears. The race sponsors, African Bank, have done their part and paid the organisers, a non-profit company, which seems to have made a sprint with the prize money.
Not so far from Soweto, at Safa House just next to Nasrec, national executive committee (NEC) members were involved in a fracas and manhandled each other like a bunch of lunatics.
The videos taken by delegates are still trending. It was highly embarrassing to see high-ranking members of the national association in such a compromising manner. NEC members are the highest decision-makers and are tasked with shaping the fortunes and the destination of South African football, but last week, they were shaping their fists.
The delegates turned a meeting of national importance into something that resembled a tavern brawl, in full view of embattled president Danny Jordaan, who seemingly did not have a plan to quell the fire. He sat there motionless, and the meeting had to be abandoned.
These are the guys who are supposed to take new Safa sponsor Standard Bank in their confidence that the top-dollar investment they have pumped into Bafana is in good hands.
Kit sponsors Adidas, too, have just returned to the fray, only to be subjected to such an ugly welcome back. The ink has not even dried on the sponsorship deals, but eish… it’s really a baptism of fire.
The 2026 Fifa World Cup gravy train to the Americas is idling already, and we can rest assured that more tackles from behind are likely to be the order of the day.
It is scandalous that NEC members’ conduct of turning the
association into a mashonisa, taking hefty financial loans from the cash-strapped Safa, is seen as normal.
Going back to the races, NPC spokesperson Jabu Mbuli attributed the Soweto race delay prize money payments to outstanding doping test results. Now, the results are out, and it seems like NPC people have gone underground, or they have headed for the hills.
None of the top finishers have received a cent for their exploits. Lesotho’s Joseph Seutloali is owed R250 000 after he won the men’s race. Mzansi’s Ntsindiso Mphakathi was hot on his heels, coming in second place, with Onalenna Khonkhobe completed the podium.
In the women’s race, Margaret Jepchumba of Kenya and Elizabeth Mokoloma of Zambia finished in that order, making sure that road-racing queen Gerda Steyn would come out third on her debut, and what seems to be her last after all the shenanigans.
Mbuli and his cohorts cannot be reached, and they have been AWOL for months now, and the race, which is supposed to be the most historical and tourist-attracting machinery, is left with egg on its face.
This after a lot of effort and funding was put into rescuing the race and pumping some life into it after a lot of in-fighting and boardroom squabbles. Hollywoodbets Athletics Club, and other running teams do not want to be associated with the race anymore.
Shame on you, Safa; shame on you, Soweto Marathon organisers.
