Cancellation of Under-17 Afcon hits Safa’s purse

Johannesburg – The cancellation of the 2021 CAF Under-17 Afcon is going to hit the South African Football Association (Safa) hard in the pocket.

The tournament, which was due to kick off in Morocco yesterday, was cancelled at the 11th hour after authorities introduced more stringent visa regulations to enter the country due to a new variant in the northern African state.

Qualifying for continental competitions and Fifa’s various juniors and women’s world cup tournaments is another revenue stream for the association since they could be guaranteed millions of rand just for qualifying.

That is another reason Safa president Danny Jordaan has made it a point, after he was elected to the hot seat, that SA national teams must qualify and participate in all continental and Fifa tournaments that they take part in.

In the past, SA national teams failed dismally to qualify for youth tournaments and only Banyana Banyana carried the fl ag with commendable success.

This contributed immensely to the SA football mother body becoming cash-strapped and operating with a negative budget.

“It is a huge setback for the association,” said Safa chief financial officer Gronie Hluyo.

“If you reach the finals, the association will get $150 000 [R2.25-million]. Runners-up get $75 000, and just for qualifying you are guaranteed $50 000,” said Hluyo.

“The association spent a lot of money in terms of preparations for the tournament. The boys had been in camp for the last two weeks and this is money down the drain for the association and also heart-breaking for the boys who wanted to represent their country and to make a name for themselves.

“And because of age, we cannot use the same players for the coming Cosafa Under-17. It ended abruptly for them but they will graduate to the next level, the Under-20 and so forth. “But we will try and recoup some of the money we spent for bookings, fl ights, visas and other expenditure from CAF,” added Hluyo.

Kgomotso Mokoena