Nothing in domestic soccer shows the problems that beset the game better than the South African Football Association (Safa) national executive committee (NEC) elections held every four years.
This is an occasion when regional representatives should decide who can develop and channel the game in the right direction for another term. It is, alas, punctuated by cronyism, cheating and blackmail.
Regional representatives are subjected to all sorts of influences. One recalls walking into his room to find ”a package under my pillow. I knew where it came from without asking. We all know who is able to get those types of gifts for us.”
In the wake of Bafana Bafana’s exclusion from next year’s World Cup in Germany the question has been whether the current Safa executive has the capacity and the administrative shrewdness to change the fortunes of the organisation.
Jomo Sono, an executive member who hardly participates in elections, noted: ”If the members of the association don’t have a problem, who am I alone to change things? I have decided to keep quiet. The regions must stop appointing yes-people.”
Observers believe that when the books are presented to the NEC they will show an accumulated loss of close to R100-million, this year’s loss alone being more than R25-milliion.
Safa president Molefi Oliphant goes into Saturday’s election unopposed, not because of popular demand but at the whim of Sepp Blatter, president of world body Fifa, who insists that it is important for Safa to retain all the people who were involved in the World Cup 2010 bid.
What is certain is that the NEC will emerge as the same old boys’ club, with one or two new faces and no capacity to deal decisively with issues that have plagued Safa.