SAFA admits financial difficulties to pay national team players

 The South Africa Football Asso­ciation (SAFA) has admitted to having cash flow challenges, which resulted in its failure to pay Bafana Bafana and Banyana Banyana match bonuses for the past three months.

Sunday World reported last week that the national association owed Bafana and Banyana players millions in unpaid match bonuses, dating back to September.

SAFA’s failure to remit payment for the soccer players’ match fees came to the fore after the footies approached the SA Football Play­ers Union to intervene and resolve the dispute. After SAFA avoided our media enquiry last week, the organisation’s chief executive offi­cer (CEO) Lydia Monyepao broke her silence this week.

In a frank interview with Sun­day World, Monyepao confirmed that they indeed owe Bafana and Banyana players match fees and that they were hoping to resolve the matter before the end of the year.

“I do confirm that there are some Bafana Bafana payments that are outstanding but we have paid their daily allowance and that is covered, all of them.

“I think maybe it is probably the last camp we did not pay them, the local camp, not the away camp. We have paid the bonuses but not all of them; we are still owing them some bonuses. We are working on ensuring that those bonuses are paid by the end of this year,” she said.

Monyepao explained the circumstances that led to their liquidity problems and failure to pay the match fees.

“This is about cash in and cash out do you have sufficient cash in your bank account to balance your scales, pay your suppliers, pay your salaries and the players and to en­sure that you host games. Hosting games is very expensive. All the expenses are for us as member associations. That’s why we go to municipalities and provinces, asking them to assist us with some of the costs. Unfortunately, not all costs are covered.

“We still have huge gaps that we still need to cover. Qualifying for AFCON was everything for us, we had to make sure the team got the best logistics so that it could qualify,” she said.

Monyepao added they have engaged the players regarding outstanding fees and that they do not want to deal with the players’ union.

“We have always had a channel of communication in terms of how we engage with the players. I was hoping to have a meeting with the players in the Cape Town camp but we could not. The captain Ronwen Williams is the first point of reference, and I gave him the schedule of how much we have paid them and what we are owing.”

Monyepao commended the players for their stupendous per­formance despite SAFA’s failure to honour its contractual obligations with them.

“We congratulate the players for qualifying for AFCON and not complaining throughout about outstanding payments. They did us proud. It’s not only the bonuses that are outstanding, we have oth­er monthly obligations, like Sars (South African Revenue Services) and the staff that we need to take care of and if we do not have suf­ficient money in the bank, we have to deal with what we can at the time,” she added. —Sundayworld

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