Jordaan re-elected president of Safa with landslide victory
● Andile “Ace” Ncobo walked out before the matter could be put to a vote, but incumbent Danny Jordaan would always have won the Safa presidential election yesterday by a landslide anyway.
Ncobo was Jordaan’s lone opponent in the elective congress at Sandton Convention Centre, and the former referee had stated, with nominations already indicating a landslide to the sitting president, that he was running for democratic purposes.
Just before noon, though, Ncobo, after a failed attempt to halt the election, which he called illegal based on alleged statutes not complied with by Safa, walked out.
Jordaan received 236, or 95.12%, of the 246 votes, bringing to an end one of the most dirtily fought a Safa presidential elections.
Afterwards Jordaan, naming strengthen- ing women’s football and bidding to host a Fifa Club World Cup among his objectives for his second five years, fumed when asked to respond to Ncobo’s allegation of illegality.
“No, no, no. You guys [the media] must stop nonsense,” he said.
“It’s absolute nonsense. And you only do it to football. Why do you do that?”
It was pointed out to Jordaan that Ncobo made the allegations.
“No, but some of you actually wrote it as if it’s true. And it’s nonsense.
“You have in this room the electoral committee.
“Some of these men are senior advocates. They have acted as judges in the high court. We have a representative from Fifa.
“So it’s your choice. You can pick if you will listen to a high court judge, to the Fifa representative, or to an opinion that is not based on anything.”
Jordaan added: “On Friday there was an attempt to stop this election. It was dismissed by the court. What else do you want?”
An urgent application was brought at the Johannesburg High Court on Friday morning to halt the elections by three Local Football Associations from Safa’s Waterberg Region, which was struck off the roll.
Ncobo, asked if he or his backers would contest the result, responded: “That decision cannot be mine. It’s a collective decision.”
Ncobo claimed that “as soon as I announced that I want my name removed there were delegates who started threatening me”.
An initial March 24 election date was called off by Safa, as irregularities pointed out by Ncobo dogged a process that has been characterised by mud-slinging and disinformation campaigns, and tarnished the image of the game and Safa.