Although Ephraim ”Shakes” Mashaba’s position as Bafana Bafana coach has been terminated by the SA Football Association (Safa), according to law he is still coach of the national soccer team following a Friday Johannesburg court ruling.
As Judge Sunita Snyders ruled that the January 7 notice suspending Mashaba was invalid, spontaneous applause broke out in the overflowing public gallery from Mashaba’s supporters.
The court battle followed a seven-day suspension notice issued last Wednesday by Safa. On Thursday, Mashaba was dismissed from his position.
Mashaba told the court on Tuesday his suspension was unlawful in terms of his service agreement.
But it is unlikely that Mashaba will actually be returning to his position or joining the national team which left for the African Cup of Nations in Tunisia two hours before the judgement was handed down.
Attorney Selwyn Silent, who instructed Advocate Tim Bruinders for Mashaba’s urgent application against Safa, indicated on Friday that more papers for a further application against Safa were expected to be filed later in the day.
”We asked them to withdraw the cancellation (of Mashaba’s contract) and they refused,” said Mashaba’s legal representative after the ruling.
Mashaba’s supporters argued that with the suspension notice being declared invalid, it followed that the termination of Mashaba’s service was also invalid.
”There is a country out there that wants its country and (team) to perform well,” said Snyders, stating that she was granting interim relief to Mashaba prior to the matter going to arbitration.
In the August 1 2002 fixed service agreement between Mashaba and Safa, set to run to December 31 2004, the parties agreed on arbitration for many issues.
Snyders appealed to both sides to ”resolve the matter through arbitration as speedily as possible”.
Delivering the ruling, the judge said: ”The shortcomings of this notice is blatantly clear.”
The fixed service contract required Safa to ”notify (Mashaba) in writing” of any facts which could be considered as a contract breach and then provide seven days for rectification.
The court heard that Safa did not inform Mashaba in writing of the facts but merely ”regurgitated clause 5.2 of the contract” which states he should ”identify all necessary player information for the national team”.
Safa then suspended Mashaba, said Judge Snyders, so he was unable to ”rectify anything”. – Sapa