Defiant Danny Jordaan says ‘all is well’ at Safa

SA Football Association (Safa) president Danny Jordaan came out of the ordinary congress on Saturday in a fiery mood as he vehemently defended the organisation by confirming they have turned to the high court to have the recent raid by the Hawks at their office declared invalid. 

Safa has been in the headlines recently, with former vice-president Ria Ledwada and a number of former NEC members accusing Jordaan and the organisation of maladministration. But Jordaan has dismissed the allegations as gossip. 

Last month, Safa’s head office in Nasrec was raided by the Hawks in connection with allegations of fraud and theft amounting to R1.3m linked to Jordaan. He maintained the search was illegal and unlawful. 

“All is well at Safa, that is what our members say and that is our report to our members and they are happy. As we have said, the raid by the Hawks was illegal, unlawful and we are going to the courts. 

“People who are complicit in this matter will be called to that court and let us wait for that court appearance. You will see when it unfolds what is actually the matter,” said Jordaan. 

He was supported by the organisation’s CEO Gronie Hluyo that they had approached the high court. 

“As you are all aware the Hawks raided the offices of Safa on March 8 and they took certain items but they returned them on March 11. In terms of the steps that we have taken, we lodged a complaint with a judge within the Hawks on March 15. 

“The Hawks have a platform wherein you can lodge complaints and we lodged a complaint because the raid that was done at our offices was unlawful and invalid in our view. 

“We consider the manner in which it was conducted unfair and we lodged a complaint with the judge and we received a reference number for that complaint and we are waiting for further action from the judge. 

“On April 4, we lodged an application with the high court to have that warrant set aside but we can’t give you more information on this because the matter is sub judice but those are the steps we have taken so far,” explained Hluyo. 

Jordaan said there is nothing to worry about. “As far Safa is concerned, this is the best period in the history of SA football. When last did you have a women’s team as African champions and a men’s team at number three? 

“When did you have such a high number of Caf A licensed coaches, and training of so many coaches in A,B,C licences? When did you have so many women footballers and so many women coaches?

“These are reports that our members have and if you want another report there is nothing we can do about it. We deal with facts, not with gossip and allegations.

“We are not interested in allegations. We were invited by Fifa in the recent miniseries where we played in Algeria. If Safa is such an organisation as described, nobody will invite us.” 

When the Hawks raided Safa House, Caf expressed its concern and Jordaan said CEO Lydia Monyepao had responded to them. 

“We are members of Caf and we asked the CEO to respond to their letter. I am attending a Caf meeting soon in Morocco and I will be there in the Caf executive meeting. I will report on whatever issues they want to know from us.”