Jordaan confirms R120 million FIFA payment, insists 'it was not a bribe'

Safa president Danny Jordaan has confirmed that the 2010 Local Organising Committee (LOC) paid $10 million (now about R120m) after South Africa won the bid to host the 2010 Fifa World Cup.

But, according to the Sunday Independent, Jordaan has insisted this was not a bribe.

Jordaan, who was the 2010 LOC chief executive, said that the $10m (about R120 million at today's rate) was paid to the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf) in 2008 as South Africa’s contribution towards their football development fund, according to the newspaper.

Jordaan told the paper that South Africa won the 2010 World Soccer Cup bid on May 15, 2004 and the $10m was only paid by Fifa to Concacaf in 2008.

“How could we have paid a bribe for votes four years after we had won the bid?”

According to the report: “Of the $100m (about R1.2 billion) which Fifa had to pay Safa for hosting the 2010 World Cup, The Sunday Independent has reliably been informed that Safa only received $80m.

“Fifa had deducted $20m ($10m for the building of Safa House and the other $10m was for the “Concacaf development fund”).

Jordaan said the money was directly paid over to them by Fifa.