Johannesburg – The purchase of the Fun Valley Resort and Entertainment Centre in the south of Johannesburg as Safa’s “state-of-the-art” technical training and camping centre has come back to haunt the national football organisation.
From the time of the acquisition of the facility, Sunday World had been at the forefront of trying to unravel how the deal was carried out following tipoffs of theft, fraud and corruption linked to the transaction between the seller and the buyer.
In the latest saga, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, the Hawks, have confirmed that a criminal investigation into the Safa Fun Valley project deal is at an advanced stage.
As the plot thickens, Safa suspended its national executive committee member Malesela Mooka who accused Safa president Danny Jordaan of theft of millions of rand.
Mooka, who has since emerged as the chief protagonist in uncovering alleged incidents of corruption within Safa, contends that before approaching the police to lay criminal charges, he had exhausted all avenues within the soccer mother body to no avail.
It is alleged that Jordaan orchestrated the inflation of the price of the resort from R30-million to R65-million in order to allegedly benefit personally from the proceeds of the transaction.
It is unsettling that the revelations come at a time when part of the R450-million 2010 World Cup Legacy Trust Fund | money, donated by Fifa to Safa, has unnecessarily become a bone of contention instead of being used to develop football in the country.
The shenanigans involving the police and Safa come at a time when all hands should be on deck in developing and looking after young and upcoming footballers.
Sorely, it also comes when both our senior national teams, Bafana Bafana and Banyana Banyana, are involved in high-profile qualifying matches for the Qatar 2022 World Cup and the 2022 Morocco women’s Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, as well as playing in the women’s Cosafa Cup in Mzansi next month.
Disturbing and rather worrisome, the investigation was launched after whistleblower Mooka reported the matter to the police, accusing Jordaan of theft for allegedly using R182 000 to redeem his reputation after rape charges were laid against him by overseas-based musician Jennifer Ferguson.
Furthermore, it has been revealed that the Safa head honcho allegedly hired a security company to the tune R40 000 to have personal guards looking after his security. It must be noted though that it is not the first time that Jordaan has come under fire for abuse of his position.
Former Safa CEO Dennis Mumble, who has now become a persona non-grata in the Safa corridors, has also been a whistleblower of note, together with another ex-CEO Gay Mokoena and deputy president Ria Ledwaba.
But we must bear in mind that some of Jordaan’s detractors were part of the decisionmaking processes at Safa at some stage during the time the money was being splashed around.
It will be interesting to see if the arrests of top soccer officials, deemed to be imminent, is effected at the end of it all.
We are not, and will not cast aspersions on Jordaan and his NEC members by accusing them of corruption. All will be revealed and tested in court as the case unfolds.
For now let’s play football and allow the law to take its course.
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