The president of the South African Football Association (Safa) in Tshwane, Solly Mohlabeng, has revealed that his region has written to Safa challenging the mother body on how it convened and conducted its last congress in Sandton, Johannesburg, to amend its constitution last month.
Major amendments to the Safa constitution were adopted, including the shooting down of a proposal for PSL club owners to run for the Safa presidency.
Although the motion was defeated, the chairperson of the PSL will continue to serve automatically as the association’s vice-president.
Mohlabeng, who will be challenging incumbent Safa president Danny Jordaan, the man at the helm for the past 13 years, said their dispute of how the congress was convened had received support from his region and two others, uThukela and Vhembe.
“The convening of the congress was unconstitutional because it did not form a quorum. We were supposed to hold it on December 11, it did not happen. Safa informed the region it was reconvening the congress after three months, that is where we believe Safa erred,” said
Mohlabeng.
“The congress did not happen in the first place, and can you ‘continue’ with a meeting that did not did not happen at all, what was wrong with convening the congress afresh?
“Second, that’s the very reason I wanted a head count at the congress to check whether everyone was accredited, because changes to the constitution meant
everyone voting must be a full member of the association.
“Third, the Safa national executive committee (NEC) is bloated. During the 2015 congress it was decided to reduce it to 20 members. Whenever the NEC meets, financial resources meant for the development of football at grassroots level are used for travel and accommodation of exco members. It’s crazy, Safa now wants to increase it to 45 people.”
Safa CEO Tebogo Motlanthe said he had no knowledge of Mohlabeng’s letter.
“How can he [Mohlabeng] say the congress was unconstitutional and improperly convened when all 52 regions and our associate members were present? It doesn’t make sense,” he said.
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