Safa’s auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) resigned in 2019, and again a year later, saying the ‘risk’ of dealing with Safa was just too high — a fact kept quiet and out of public knowledge ever since. In addition, a Scorpio probe found at least R14-million in Safa funds paid in a questionable and possibly unlawful manner to or for the benefit of the association’s president, Danny Jordaan. 

Safa management has gone to great lengths in recent years to pretend that all is well and that the loss-making association is financially sound.

The pretence fools no one, of course. Mainly because the money seems not to end up where it is supposed to. Banyana Banyana recently refused to play a friendly against Botswana, seemingly over a lack of finances including equal pay and questions about where $1-million from Fifa to prepare the team for the Fifa Women’s World Cup actually ended up. The Motsepe Foundation had to jump in and open its purse for Banyana. Bafana Bafana players also threatened to strike ahead of their latest Morocco match because of unpaid salaries.