Safa concede match-fixing

THERE is consensus within Safa that the pre-World Cup friendlies identified by the Sunday Times last week probably were "fixed" - but the feeling is that the organisation's officials were duped by sophisticated international operators such as Wilson Raj Perumal and involved no corruption by Bafana Bafana players or Safa officials.

This might be so, but questions remain, one of which revolves around Bafana team manager Sipho Nkumane and his suspension weeks before the World Cup, and subsequent dismissal.

"My calculation is that they were replacing me with people who could do Football4U things freely," Nkumane said this week.

Before his suspension, Nkumane had been Bafana's team manager for three years. He handled the team budget, accommodation for players and referees, as well as travel logistics. "All of a sudden I was suspended - just days before these fingered friendlies started," he said. The reasons given for Nkumane's suspension related to his failure to arrange signage around the Bafana practic e facility in Germany in April 2010. Nkumane says other forces were at play, but he declined to elaborate.

Safa and officials were reluctant to be quoted yesterday, but they believe it is wrong to link Nkumane's dismissal to what happened subsequently. A top Safa official said: "Sipho was constantly banging heads with team management, which was why he lost his job - it's incorrect to relate this to the alleged match-fixing."

However, the role of head of referees Ace Kika remains central, as does the marginalisation of Steve Goddard, Safa's head of referees at the time. The Sunday Times has an e-mail Kika sent to Football 4U's Perumal in which he agrees on Safa's behalf to allow Perumal's organisation to pay the match commissioner and fourth official's match fees after Bafana's friendly against Thailand in May 2010.

Adding further credence to at least four of Bafana's five pre-World Cup friendlies being "fixed" is the reputation of Nigerian referee Ibrahim Chaibou, who refereed the Bafana v Guatemala friendly and would have refereed the one against Denmark had the officials not been changed at the last minute. He ran the infamous friendly in Abuja between Nigeria and Argentina in June last year.

This was won by Nigeria 4-1, with Argentina receiving a penalty in the eighth minute of extra time. The odds on a fifth goal being scored were long, but money suddenly started flowing on that possible outcome.