SAFA NEC CONCLUDES ORDINARY MEETING

Members of the South African Football Association’s (SAFA) National Executive Committee (NEC) met in Sandton on Friday to conclude the Ordinary NEC Meeting that was adjourned at SAFA House a week ago.

Various SAFA Committees made presentations and informed Members about the activities in the Finance, Technical, Competitions, Commercial and Marketing, International Affairs, Legal and Constitutional, Membership Affairs, Schools Football, Referees, Women’s Football, and the Security & Protocol Committees.

SAFA Finance Committee chairman Mxolisi Sibam said the key element in his presentation was on a turnaround strategy for the Association.

“The key thing was to present a turnaround strategy, which has been three months in the making, from the Finance Committee to the NEC,” Sibam said.

“It’s a matter of us trying to reset and make sure we repurpose, not necessarily restructure, but we reset SAFA to a point that it can be a modern Association that can follow the trends of the world and look at the best practices of the other FAs in the world that are very successful.

“We must also look mainly at our competitors in Africa, in the top ten countries on the continent, because at the end of the day, whatever we do, we’re competing with the top ten countries in Africa. So we must also try to make sure that we modernize how we do business, how we raise revenue, how we control our expenditure, and how we relate to our stakeholders, like our sponsors, our members, and also SASCOC and government, to make sure that we are properly purposed, and we are ready so we can compete with the rest of the world.”

SAFA Technical Committee Chairman Jack Maluleka said they are in the final stages of completing the process of appointing a new Technical Director.

“We are busy with the shortlisting of the candidate in two weeks’ time. We’ll be interviewing and we will then recommend the name to the Executive Committee of SAFA to approve the name. But today, on our report, it was just to highlight technical matters because all of our teams are busy,” he said.

“Banyana Banyana have already left for Morocco where they will defend their Women’s Africa Cup of Nations title. The U17 boys and girls will be participating in the Region 5 Youth Games in Namibia next month. Then there is the team that will participate in the CAF African Nations Championship to be held in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in August 2025. So, you can see that we are a very, very busy nation, specifically in the technical department.”