Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie come out guns blazing, condemning in the strongest terms the behaviour of the leadership of the South African Football Association (Safa) after an NEC meeting descended into a violent brawl on Saturday.
Tensions exploded at meeting, with top officials pushing and yelling over unpaid regional grants, bonuses for the Bafana Bafana Chan squad, and factional fights ahead of the elective congress.
A video that went viral on social media platforms showed the chaotic spectacle, with officials pushing and shoving each other.
‘This is embarrassing’
An unimpressed McKenzie did not waste time to make his utter disgust felt. The minister took to X, formerly known as twitter, decrying the negative impact that such ghastly scenes would have on endeavours to source sponsorships for the financially distressed football governing body.
McKenzie threatened to report the incident to the highest football governing bodies, the Cofederation of African Football (CAF) and the International Association Football Federation (Fifa), and inform them that action would be taken.
“This is hugely embarrassing and shameful behaviour by the people tasked with running our football. We will be informing CAF and Fifa about our intention to investigate and take action. We are hard at work bringing corporate sponsorship to Safa to allow this nonsense.”
Safa president Danny Jordaan, seeking a fourth term, faces rivals from the Football Task Force and Save Our Soccer groups, amid accusations of deploying security and an ongoing fraud case postponed to April.
