The South African Football Association (Safa) website lists the date of birth of its technical committee chairperson, Sturu Pasiya, as January 26 2006 — the same day that Bafana Bafana were beaten 2-0 by Tunisia in the African Nations Cup in Egypt, thereby sealing an ignominious elimination in the first round.
The website listing is a glitch, but the impression remains that Safa is peopled by some babes in the woods — inexperienced and unsuitable to host or compete well in the 2010 World Cup.
The technical committee came up with the clanger of choosing Ted Dumitru as Bafana coach. He was axed this week, in response to public outrage, but this is just the first of many changes that must take place.
Bafana went to Egypt without a general and administrative manager after Stanley ”Screamer” Tshabalala had been eased out of the position.
So what can be done to remedy the situation? Can the government interfere, as has been threatened?
Absolutely not, as Kenya’s example shows. Fifa has threatened to ban the east African country because of a dispute between football officials and government, which demanded accountability. World football’s governing body refuses to accept that the game is run differently in different parts of the world.
In a recent interview a former secretary of the Kenya Football Federation noted: ”One thing should be clear. Unlike associations in developed countries, African football associations rely a lot on government support.
”It is difficult to divorce the running of the game from the government which finances the national team and provides the infrastructure.”
What can government do, then? The question is how and what the entry point would be. Football has been the subject of many inquiries in a bid to cleanse it, but the underlying malaise is seldom addressed. Minister of Sport Makhenkesi Stofile told the Mail & Guardian this week he would meet Safa within the week and stress the importance of improving its organisation and the national team.
Safa’s structure is part of the problem. The above box shows how regional bodies dominate the voting system.
Another longstanding problem is cronyism; people are pushed into positions primarily because they are friends of powerful individuals in the association.
There are, however, positive signs from another important source: the sponsors. An executive at one of Bafana’s most important backers says his bosses sent him an SMS after South Africa’s game against Guinea asking: ”what the … is happening there?” If sponsors ask serious questions and demand mileage for what they put in, then the battle against bad administration at Safa is half-won.
Most African pundits who were at the Confederation of African Football (CAF) congress, held last month in Egypt, expressed a genuine concern about the future of football in South Africa and whether our current administrators have the capacity to take the game to a level beyond winning the rights to host the next World Cup. South Africa has not endeared itself locally or internationally.
One critic wryly asked: ”Can [Molefi] Oliphant [Safa President] conduct negotiations on behalf of South Africa in the international community? I have been to many conferences and meetings with him, he never contributes to debates, he takes his briefcase and sits quietly.”
Oliphant is still Safa president, at Fifa’s insistence.
But the most powerful individual in South African soccer by far is ”The Iron Duke”, Irvin Khoza — chairperson of South Africa’s World Cup Organising Committee, a Safa vice-president, chairperson of the PSL and MD and financial powerhouse behind the Orlando Pirates throne.
He has helped place in key positions throughout the South African soccer spectrum an assortment of hirelings who give credence to the assumption that what ”The Iron Duke” sanctions goes.
Khoza is a compulsive doer and claims he only fills all his abundant roles because no one else has the gumption or balls to undertake the challenging jobs he is tackling.
But if that is indeed the case, Khoza must also take on the responsibility of cleaning up Safa and South African soccer — or make way for others to do the job in a more enlightened, professional and ethical manner.
Additional reporting by Julia Beffon
The Facts
Safa voting structure
53 regions aligned to the municipal structures.
Each region has four votes for national positions.
Premier Soccer League has six votes, also for national seats.
Eight associate members with two votes each, also nationally (these include schools, universities, the defence force and so on).