Banyana saga: Safa release incendiary statement expressing shock at Safpu

The saga of Banyana Banyana’s dispute with the South African Football Association (Safa) continues, with Safa hitting out at the SA Football Players Union (Safpu) over “misleading utterances in the public domain” that the union has reached an agreement with the ruling body.

Safa released an incendiary statement late on Monday night in which it said it was “shocked by Safpu’s false claims”.

A day before some of the team’s scheduled departure on Wednesday — others leave on Thursday — the prospect of an agreement between Safa and Banyana remains fraught.

Safpu president Thulaganyo Gaoshubelwe said the union is confused by allegations made in Safa’s statement, the contents of which he called “absurd”, and that the release of it does not bode well for reaching an agreement.

The World Cup-bound women’s national team has been in a stand-off with Safa over contractual issues and the quality of their build-up to the tournament. They were barred from playing their send-off match against Botswana at Tsakane Stadium on Sunday.

Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi held an emergency meeting at the stadium to broker a return to the negotiating table of Safa and Banyana, represented by Safpu.

“Safa has noted the concerning and misleading utterances in the public domain attributed to Safpu claiming it has a co-operative agreement with the association,” Safa’s statement read.

“This statement is false, distasteful and misleading as no such agreement is in place. It is an insult to the intellect of the nation.

“Safa challenges Safpu to produce a copy of such an agreement. As a trade union, they should know that there are particular processes that have to be followed.”

Safa said these processes were:

* “They must prove their membership. We challenge them to produce a list of members who are women footballers.

* “They must produce the membership numbers and any payments made to the union by these members.

* “We further remind them we have more than 400,000 women footballers. How many of them are members of this union? This union has continued to make bogus claims at will and we feel it is time to call them out. This is an insult to the intelligence of our nation. We challenge him on these three things.”

Safa’s statement continued: “These [women’s] players have been nurtured and developed through Safa structures ... and we are proud of their achievements.

“Fifa, in a Fifa congress, recognised the progress of Safa in women’s football. This union sprang into action two weeks ago after Fifa announced the bonus payments to all the women footballers who will participate in the Fifa Women’s World Cup.

“Safa must further inform the nation that Fifa’s funding is allocated to specific projects. Fifa operates on the basis that for any funding Safa must sign what is called a contract of agreed objectives. The money is allocated in terms of the agreed objectives.

“And as pointed out in the letter, Fifa then comes and subjects the payments to their audit processes. So, Safa cannot just use money allocated for one project to fund or use for a different purpose.

“The claim of the union that they want to establish a professional league for women is laughable. They are not a structure of Safa, nor are they a structure of the Confederation of African Football or any football federation.

“The union is a member of Fifpro and the African Players Union. They are not affiliated to Safa, to Caf and to Fifa. This distinction must be understood and it is time the association tells the public the truth.”

Gaoshubelwe expressed bewilderment at some of the claims made by Safa. He denied Safpu have made public claims of an agreement, and said the only agreement was the one publicly announced by Lesufi for the parties to return to the negotiating table.

“It’s absurd,” he said. “We don’t keep files for Safa because they always are plagued by amnesia when it’s convenient for them.

“We have agreed to a process now they are saying there is no relationship — what does that mean?”

He said Safpu is not a member of Safa because as a union it needs independence.

“We signed an agreement with Safa. By the way, we forced Safa to establish the players’ status committee [to decide disputes]. And why would they discuss such important issues with an organisation that doesn’t have a co-operation agreement with them?

“We are not a member of Safa and not interested in being. Safa approached us through [president] Danny Jordaan to say, ‘become an associate member’. We said, ‘Danny, we can’t be an associate member of Safa because we want to keep our independence’.”

Gaoshubelwe said he could not understand Safa’s assertion that Safpu ever expressed a desire to start a women’s league. He said Safpu have only expressed a desire to play a role in professionalising domestic women’s football.

Among issues Banyana are requesting is that Safa write into their contracts the appearance fee of R570,000 paid to each player by Fifa for playing at the World Cup.

“We insist that the money given to Banyana by Fifa be in their contracts. They are saying in their statement, ‘No, that money is like this and we cannot do anything’. It’s because Danny gives them information and that NEC [Safa national executive committee] takes decisions that are not proper.

“We would not be responding to this, but the statement that was released last night, when we observe what we agreed on this Sunday, [and that gets] trampled on by Danny Jordaan and his cohorts it becomes a problem for us.

“A statement like this doesn’t help the process [of finding an agreement]. And it’s not just their statement but their actions.

“They are saying we have not reached any agreement to go back to the negotiating table — that’s how we understand their statement.”

The South Africans kick off their group G campaign against Sweden in Wellington, New Zealand on July 23.

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