‘On the question of an investigation, I don’t know into what’: Jordaan on Banyana fiasco

South African Football Association (Safa) president Danny Jordaan said he sees no need for an internal investigation into what went wrong in the Banyana Banyana fiasco.

Sports minister Zizi Kodwa, though, took a contrary view on whether the matter deserved further interrogation, at least from a government perspective, and suggested further questions will be asked of the association.

Banyana departed OR Tambo International Airport for the World Cup in New Zealand and Australia on Wednesday after the Motsepe Foundation stepped in to fund an additional payment to the players of R230,000 each to go with Fifa’s appearance money of R570,000 for the group stage.

There were numerous question marks over Safa’s handling of the matter. These included arranging 150th-ranked Botswana as a send-off match for a tournament where Banyana meet third-ranked Sweden and top 30-ranked Italy and Argentina in group G, and using the substandard Tsakane Stadium as a venue. Safa allegedly told Banyana, amid a protest, to get off the team bus for the game despite the side being willing to play.

Jordaan seemed at pains, though, to play down the situation as simply a player strike and deny errors by Safa in the monumentally embarrassing saga, apart from leaving contract negotiations late.

He was angered at the suggestion the association might engage in introspection or an internal investigation.

“On the question of an investigation, I don’t know into what. Because sometimes negotiations [over strikes] are adversarial,” the president said in the press conference with the SA Football Players Union (Safpu), sports minister Zizi Kodwa and Dr Precious Moloi-Motsepe to announce the deal brokered with Banyana.

“Negotiations are give and take. And every party must put their own best interests. It would be strange if we met the union and just agreed.”

Kodwa, though, was less convinced further investigation of the matter was not needed.

“We will not be able to avoid a repeat if we do not deal with what led to [this situation] and what happened,” he said.

“We avoided that part in the negotiations of the last 48 hours. But certainly we have to go back to it at some point.”

Jordaan was asked about the R400,000 paid to each player when they won last year’s Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon), which came out of the prize money, and the Motsepe Foundation bailing out the association on additional payments for this World Cup, and why Safa is unable to make its own funds available.

He had to admit Safa simply could not afford a few million rand more, which begs questions over its administration of its finances.

“For women’s football for the last 11 years we only had one sponsor, Sasol. And that sponsorship, you have to multiply by five to cover all the costs [of Banyana],” he said.

“Bonus payments are a product of negotiations — it’s only then you need another R5m, R10m, and then we have to find it.”

Jordaan was asked why the matter of a disagreement had to come to the embarrassing scenes at Tsakane Stadium and an 11th-hour intervention of the Motsepe Foundation and government to reach a deal.

“One thing that must happen is the contracts must be concluded earlier,” he said.

“The players get released [from their clubs] to the national team based on the Fifa calendar, so the time frame is short.

“That’s why we’ve said for major competitions like the Nations Cup and World Cup, when the coach announces the squad — because we cannot have a contract until the coach picks the player — we then sit down and finalise the contract.

“The furore is [because] any negotiation starts where the demand is there and the ability of the association is somewhere else.

“During negotiations there must be a closing of that gap, with a priority of national pride as part of that process, and then the parties come to a compromise.

“And as the president of the union [Thulaganyo Gaoshubelwe] said, it was a long and difficult process. But we are here, we finalised it.

“We had to find additional revenue — we did that. And so the team can go knowing everything has been concluded.”

Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.