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Cape Town - It is now almost four long years since Golden Arrows chairperson Mato Madlala has continued in the role of acting CEO of the PSL and coming up to a year since Russell Paul assumed the position of acting CEO of SAFA.
Apart from the boss of a club curiously becoming the supposed neutral CEO of South African soccer's all-encompassing professional soccer organisation, as is the case with Madlala, what is behind both the PSL and SAFA simultaneously allowing an acting tag to adorn both Madlala and Paul for periods in which a permanent appointment would appear more appropriate?
It is, of course, not unusual for strange decisions to emerge in the administration of South African soccer, but herein in regard to the extended acting CEOs appointments some explanation should be on the cards - and so far both the PSL and SAFA have been evasive or downright misleading in responding.
In fact, two years ago PSL chairperson Irvin Khoza said the appointment of a permanent CEO was imminent. Two years later and nothing has happened since the assurance from the autocratic boss of the PSL who has appropriately been labelled "The Iron Duke."
There was nothing wrong with Paul, a respected former head of SAFA's Western Cape division, being appointed as acting CEO in the wake of the sudden and still somewhat mysterious and surprising departure of Dennis Mumble, a long-time associate of president Danny Jordaan, from the post.
But surely it is now time for Jordaan to either sanction Paul's position as permanent or fill the position with someone else.
And the suggestion has been made that both the all-powerful presidents of the PSL and SAFA are quite content to have Madlala and Paul respectively continuing in an acting capacity while they themselves rule the roost in their subservient organisations.
After all, who was it who suggested that those operating in an acting capacity are no more than officials in captivity?
