”They haven’t come to South Africa for a soccer game in 100 years,” said World Cup local organising committee CEO Danny Jordaan at a media briefing of the newly formed South African Football Association (Safa) commercial wing on Wednesday, ”but you can be sure world champions Italy will now be in the queue clamouring to come here before the 2010 tournament.”
Jordaan was commenting at the Safa House meeting on the disclosure by the new organisation’s CEO, Sbu Mngadi, that more than a dozen games have already been earmarked for Bafana in the next 13 months.
”It’s one of the spin-offs of staging the World Cup,” added Jordaan. ”All the teams will want to come here to get an idea of the conditions — and, what was previously a problem in attracting the top nations, will now become a relatively simple undertaking.”
Safa CEO Raymond Hack described as ridiculous a recent report that South African soccer’s controlling body was broke and pooh-poohed the suggestion there was a rift with the commercial wing, which is hardly surprising in view of the fact that Safa is a 100% shareholder in what is officially SA Football Limited.
Pointing out it is difficult to be at loggerheads with yourself, Hack said Safa House alone is a R100-million asset of Safa, which is, in any case, financially secure.
And the Safa CEO said the reports that Bafana players had not been paid their R60 000 match fees for the African Nations Cup qualifying game against Chad were ”off the mark and mischievous”.
”The game took place towards the end of March,” added Hack, ”and as is the usual procedure in such cases, the players will be paid at the end of April.”
”The primary objective of SA Football Ltd,” said Mngadi, is to maximise the economic value of Bafana, the Under-23 national team and the women’s [team] Banyana Banyana.” — Sapa