Battle for Safa post turns nasty

Nonkonyana, Jordaan barely speaking

Chief Mwelo Nonkonyana said his relationship with South African Football Association (Safa) president Danny Jordaan had deteriorated to a point where the two former close associates were barely on speaking terms.

Nonkonyana is aggrieved that Jordaan chaired the meeting that took the decision to expel him from Safa in 2014 and he was spoiling for a fight ahead of the Safa presidential elections on March 24.

The two Eastern Cape administrators will be in opposite corners of the ring as incumbent Jordaan plans to stand for re-election while Nonkonyana tries to unseat his erstwhile comrade from a position he has occupied since 2013.

“When he presided over a congress to take a decision that is against Safa statutes and against his comrade and colleague‚ myself‚ for having done nothing in football‚ that really affected our relationship – I cannot lie‚” Nonkonyana said.

“Ever since then I have never called him and he never called me.”

Nonkonyana was suspended in October 2013 after he said in interviews that former Bafana Bafana coach Gordon Igesund should quit if the national team failed to reach the final of the SA-held 2014 African Nations Championships.

He elected to go to court to challenge the suspension‚ a course of action that brought him to loggerheads with his former colleagues.

He was eventually dismissed in October 2014 following a unanimous decision by the football body at the congress held in Sandton.

The icy relationship seemingly goes further than that as Nonkonyana is also not happy that Jordaan did not call him when he was recovering in hospital after he was involved in a car accident in the Eastern Cape in November 2016.

Curiously Nonkonyana held his press conference to confirm his candidacy as one of the contenders for the Safa presidency in the bowels of FNB Stadium‚ only a few meters away from Safa House.

“I know that when I go to Safa House‚ that Safa House will be nervous. I will consider going there at an appropriate time,” he chuckled in explanation.

The nominations close in the middle of next month‚ some 30 days before the elections. —