The South African Football Association (Safa) has hit back at the SA Football Players Union (Safpu) amid World Cup bonus claims made by Banyana Banyana players recently.
Safa, who are the custodians of football in the country, are questioning the union’s membership in its structures.
What was supposed to be a day of celebration and bidding farewell to the World Cup-bound team, turned out to be a day infested with drama as the entire Banyana squad boycotted their send-off match against Botswana at the Tsakane Stadium on Sunday.
Safpu president Thulaganyo Gaoshubelwe pinned the entire situation on Safa president Danny Jordaan, saying the association did not want to sit down with players to discuss bonus payments provided by Fifa.
Safa has since defended its stance in the matter, saying the utterances by Safpu were misleading.
“This statement is false, distasteful, and misleading as no such agreement is in place. It is an insult to the intellect of the nation,” Safa said in a statement.
“Safa challenges Safpu to produce a copy of such an agreement. As a trade union, they should know that there are particular processes that have to be followed, including:
- They [Safpu] must prove their membership. We challenge them to produce a list of members who are women footballers.
- They must produce the membership numbers and any payments made to the union by these members.
- We further remind them that we have more than 400 000 women footballers. How many of them are members of this union? This union has continued to make bogus claims at will and we feel it is time to call them out. This is an insult to the intelligence of our nation. We challenge him [Gaoshubelwe] on these three things.
SAFA News 🗞⤵️https://t.co/k5dG5zqkvZ
— SAFA.net (@SAFA_net) July 3, 2023
“They [union] are not a structure of Safa, nor are they a structure of the Confederation of African Football [CAF] or any football federation. The union is a member of FIFPRO [an international federation of professional footballers] and the African Players Union.
“They are not affiliated to Safa, to CAF and to Fifa. This distinction must be understood, and it is time that the association tells the public the truth.”
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