Re-elected SAFA President Dr Danny Jordaan and CEO Advocate Tebogo Motlanthe have unreservedly apologised to the members of the media following an unfortunate incident that played out on Friday in Sandton on the eve of the Elective Congress.
Dr Jordaan and Adv Motlanthe offered their unconditional apology to ENCA journalist Hloni Mtimkulu after she was impeded from doing her job as she filmed a heated exchange between a National Executive Committee member and other members of the media. They also offered their apology to other members of the media who had a spat with SAFA members.
“We had a Press Conference yesterday (on Friday) and we had an incident there which we condemn totally,” Dr Jordaan said after he had been re-elected as SAFA President at the Sandton Convention Centre on Saturday.
“You know that my own history is a history of struggle for freedom of Press, freedom of speech and therefore as an institution, as an organisation we have to apologise for what happened on Friday.
“I think it is the first time in my long memory of football and we do not want it to happen again.”
The SAFA President said members of the media are valuable partners and similar unsavoury scenes cannot be allowed to happen ever again.
Advocate Motlanthe said they immediately spoke to the SAFA members about the incident when the issue was brought to their attention
“As the president said, when we deal with media we have always said as our valued partners, we have an open door policy,” the SAFA CEO said.
“I want to again say we apologise for what happened yesterday. We have spoken to the members concerned and we apologise on their behalf.”
Advocate Motlanthe said the Elective Congress held under the watchful eye of world football governing body FIFA and the Confederation of African Football was a huge success.
Dr Jordaan received 186 votes to comfortably win the elective race on a landslide. His rivals Ria Ledwaba and Solly Mohlabeng received 27 votes and eight respectively.
“We started the day very well, but there were of course people who started a protest (outside the Convention Centre), who wanted to cause problems because they were angry, but we would like to thank security for dealing with those incidents,” said the SAFA CEO.
“We had a successful Congress, success in that we had FIFA and CAF (as obsevers). The Governance Committee ran the process and we did not receive a single objection from any of the members. Starting with the credentials, they were adopted. You know in some quarters, the credentials are the ones that break meetings. Here the credentials were adopted and the elections took place, all the members who were accredited took part.”
