TUESDAY, 1.30PM:
THE South African Football Association (Safa) and its marketing arm Awesome Sports International (ASI) will jointly stage this year’s Four Nations Cup tournament. ASI co-director Ian Riley and Safa chief executive officer Danny Jordaan said the marketing company is negotiating for a sponsor, but the tournament is a Safa event.
This follows submisions by the Pickard Commision that ASI be relieved of its duties in September. But Safa cannot legally terminate AVI’s contract and now it seems that ASI will be around to organise Bafana Bafana’s participation in the Confederation Cup of Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia, from December 12 to 21.
“After the shareholding changes at Foodcorp, a sponsorship withdrawal was envisaged, but Simba as a subsidiary and the backers of the Safa development programme may take over. We are negotiating with them,” said Riley. Foodcorp formerly sponsored the tournament, through its Simba brand.
Safa has invited Namibia, Tunisia, Morocco or Cameroon and Nigeria to participate in this year’s tournament. “We have an obligation to play Niamibia after they invited us for their Independence Day celebrations, but unfortunately we could not make it,” said Jordaan.
Meanwhile, the long-awaited match between Nigeria and South Africa could take place in this year’s Four Nations Cup. The match is seen by many as the answer to the question as to who are the champions of Africa. This follows an announcement by Jordaan on Monday that he has sent an invitation to the Nigerian Football Association to participate in this year’s event. “We are hoping that Nigeria will accept our invitation as this would once and for all settle this unfinished business on the soccer field. It’s a game that must take place and we believe now is the right time to stage it,” added Jordaan.