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Johannesburg - South Africa will only know next week who the first female SA Football Association (Safa) vice-president will be because the election of the three deputies was deferred for seven days to allow KwaZulu-Natal to provide its list.
The usual suspects, Ria Ledwaba and Natasha Tsichlas, made it to the national list with huge votes. Ledwaba led the national list with 220 votes, followed by Xolile Nkompela with 210, Tsichlas with 198 and Emma Hendricks with 196 votes.
There was plenty of drama before re-elected Safa president Danny Jordaan’s landslide victory, where he was voted in by 95% of the members.
Andile “Ace” Ncobo, who was the sole challenger to Jordaan, stormed out of the elective congress in a huff, claiming it was “all a fraudulent scam”, and he said that “my name cannot bless this thing, I’m done”.
On Friday, former vice-president Lucas Nhlapo failed in a bid where he was represented by erstwhile vice-president Chief Mwelo Nonkonyana to gain a court interdict to stop the gathering from going ahead. The court dismissed his application.
After being elected, a beaming Jordaan addressed the media and spelled out his plans for the next four years.
His plans included:
. Strengthening women’s football and exploring chances of hosting another Soccer World Cup;
. Improving club football with the aim of South Africa having more representatives at the Fifa Club World Cup and even hosting the event;
. Deciding on who Safa will vote for to host the 2026 World Cup, as Morocco had made a presentation to the Council of Southern African Football Associations (Cosafa) and CAF had asked associations on the continent to support its bid.
Jordaan said these were the three most pressing issues that Safa’s national executive committee (NEC) that was elected yesterday had to deal with.
“We will discuss now with the new NEC and put together a strategic committee to study the feasibility of hosting the Fifa Women’s World Cup and Club World Cup,” he said.
“These are the two proposals we are going to study and discuss as the NEC. We will put together a special committee to further interrogate them, then take them to the government and then, of course, to Fifa.”
On the Morocco issue, Jordaan said: “They made a presentation to Cosafa and you know the CAF position is that Morocco’s is an African bid. This is a matter that this new executive will discuss with the minister of sport [Tokozile Xasa] and CAF.
“You may also know that, during Barcelona’s visit, the CAF president [Ahmad Ahmad] was here and had a meeting with the minister. The new executive must now sit down and discuss that issue.
“Next week, the leaders of the US bid will come here to engage us and southern Africa. So you can see that, at the international level, there are huge tasks that we must take on.”
When asked if he would challenge the elections, Ncobo said: “This is not my thing [to challenge], it is the decision that has to been taken by the football people who wanted me to stand.”
His next step?
“Life goes on, you guys will know what the next step is.”
On why he came to the congress at all if he felt it was illegal, his answer was: “I came here to formally register inside congress because, when you pursue redress on something, the first questions you are asked are: ‘Were you there? Did you register that objection?’ If your answer is no to those questions, then you have a problem.
“I’m here, I registered, I’ve got my tag. I signed my attendance register, I rose in the congress, I registered the fact that this is unlawful, not procedural and breaks the statutes of the electoral code. I did those two, that is money in the vault.”
Ahmad and his Cosafa counterpart, Philip Chiyangwa, phoned to congratulate Jordaan on his election.
Electoral committee chair Advocate McCaps Motimele commended the manner in which the Safa elections were conducted, describing the process as mature and transparent.
He declared the elections free and fair.
KwaZulu-Natal will have its list compiled and completed in seven days’ time.
