MARC STRYDOM | What genuine sense of shame or accountability does Safa actually have?

Is there genuinely no sense of shame or vaguely any awareness of the embarrassment the South African Football Association (Safa) is capable of bringing on itself?

This is a genuine question, not one posed for dramatic or rhetorical purposes. It is simply astounding the level Safa is capable of falling to without feeling the need for accountability or introspection.

There are four Safa national executive committee (NEC) members who have been ― at Safa’s congress on the East Rand two weekends ago ― expelled without any disciplinary committee (DC) process.

The ‘crime’ by Gladwyn White, Orapeleng Setlhare, Monde Montshiwa and Emma Hendricks? They took a matter of their suspension to court without exhausting internal processes, Safa said. A transgression not worth further charges, Safa asserts, but full expulsion.

They were suspended after an NEC meeting in March descended into chaos. They have voiced opposition to Safa president Danny Jordaan standing for a fourth term at the association’s elective congress in September. They allege they are being silenced and ejected for opposing Jordaan and asking Safa to hold its president accountable for “governance failures” and his pending case before the Johannesburg commercial crimes court.

Jordaan though, as he faces fraud charges in court, remains unsuspended and has not seen the need to step aside pending his name being cleared (or not).

Then there is a now notorious Bafana Bafana team manager whose one bungle almost cost the team their place at the 2026 World Cup and the other saw the squad leave for the tournament a day late, minus four members of the camp.

Vincent Tseka is not suspended. He stood grinning in team photos, then boarded Bafana’s charter flight for Mexico on Monday afternoon, where they meet the co-hosts in the opening game of the tournament at Mexico City’s famed Estadio Azteca on June 11, even when the four whose visas had not been rescued by the scramble to secure them on Sunday remained behind, including assistant coach Helman Mkhalele.

Reports are Tseka was behind the latest bungle, apparently failing to submit full names for visa applications at the US embassy, which resulted in perhaps even the bulk of the travelling party of players and technical or back room staff not having received their visas by this weekend.

This left Safa, aided by the department of international relations and co-operation (Dirco) and staff members at the US consulate working on a Sunday, scrambling to fix the issue so Bafana could leave a day late. Teams and officials travelling to the World Cup obtain US visas, which then also apply for co-hosts Mexico and Canada.

This is another international embarrassment for the association that Tseka is allegedly responsible for.

During the qualifiers the team manager failed to pick up a suspension for midfielder Teboho Mokoena, who was fielded as an ineligible player in a home win against Lesotho in March 2025. Fifa stripped Bafana of the three points from that victory. The team recovered admirably to qualify on the final day. It did not have to be so close.

And if this had not been Fifa’s first 48-team World Cup, increased from the previous 32 and watering down the qualification standard, and had Nigeria not had a nightmare campaign in South Africa’s group, Bafana would not have had reason to board Monday’s flight at all. They would not have qualified.

There will be accountability, but we have to wait for all the reports to come in.

—  Danny Jordaan to parliament on Vincent Tseka's Teboho Mokoena bungle

Given their 16-year absence since hosting the World Cup in 2010 and 24 years since actually qualifying for the tournament, and the signs of a revival under coach Hugo Broos, it would have been an inexcusable setback had this blunder cost Bafana their place in North America.

Yet Tseka was not immediately, summarily and completely, mind-bogglingly-justifiably removed as team manager. Parliament’s sports portfolio committee asked Safa why in June last year. Jordaan and Safa head of legal Poobalan Govindasamy told MPs the association was waiting for Fifa’s final decision so it could complete its internal investigation and promised accountability.

“That matter is under investigation. When Fifa makes the decision only then [will Safa’s] investigation be completed. The investigation is incomplete at the moment,” Govindasamy said in response to a grilling.

Jordaan said: “There will be accountability, but we have to wait for all the reports to come in.

“If you act against any staff member, they have the right to take up the matter. Our position is clear, we’ll defend the position on the side of what is right, but unfortunately we cannot do that at this stage.

“We can plead that you give us some space so we can deal with the matter.”

Were these simply lies?

Three months later, in September 2025, Fifa’s outcome was made known and three points were deducted. Nine months after that no action was taken against Tseka, and worse still, he was entrusted with a major task in handling the Bafana squad’s US visas for the World Cup, seemingly without oversight even with his track record, and the outcome is some sort of surprise how exactly?

Tseka should not have kept his job after, as far back as September 2022, he failed to book Dobsonville Stadium as a training ground for friendlies against Sierra Leone and Botswana.

Yet four NEC members whose greatest transgression ― whatever validity their charges might have been in terms of the exact letters of the statutes ― seems to have been opposing Jordaan, are expelled without even a DC.

Terms such as ‘astounding’ and ‘mind-boggling’ have been used in this piece. Is there a thesaurus for such terms alone? It’s jaw-dropping ― perhaps just simply shocking will do.

Broos wanted to leave at least 10 days before the opener because he said it takes that length of time to adjust to high altitude. Mexico City sits at 2,240m above sea level, 500m above high-altitude Johannesburg (1,750m). Bafana’s training base at Universidad del Futbol y Ciencias del Deporte, part of the Grupo in Pachuca, 95km outside Mexico City, sits at 2,430m. A Tuesday arrival will leave Bafana about 10 days to adapt to the altitude.

As Bafana touch down in Mexico City on Wednesday and board their team bus to Pachuca, a day late, let’s hope this poor a departure does not affect morale for a side already battling form this year in their warm-ups and flying the flag in one of the World Cup’s tougher groups.