Homeless SA soccer wants FNB back

SOUTH African Football Association (Safa) president Danny Jordaan is to meet public works minister Thulas Nxesi this month to begin talks about the ownership of FNB Stadium.

Safa gave up ownership of the old venue to government to fast-track the authorisation of the R3,3-billion makeover of the structure ahead of the 2010 World Cup, and Jordaan — who was appointed Safa president three months ago — told the Sunday Times the sport has struggled to generate revenue since losing its biggest asset.

The Safa headquarters, Safa House, is built next to the 94 000-seater calabash, but while the mother body owns the R70-million building, the land it is built on is still owned by government.

Jordaan said this sensitive issue would be part of talks with Nxesi, as they are desperate to own the land on which Safa House is built.

‘‘Step one is to engage the minister (Nxesi) and see how we can own both the top struc-

Safa would enter into a shareholding agreement

ture, the office and the land,” Jordaan told the Sunday Times. ‘‘If we achieve that, I think Safa House will be worth more than R100-million. It is worth about R70-million right now.

‘‘Step two— we have to look at how to get to a point of having a centre of excellence. If we can get access to that stadium we can move Safa headquarters back to the stadium, and therefore Safa House can become a centre of excellence. There is enough space to develop training grounds there so it becomes what it was meant to be in the first place — a soccer city.

In the future we can look towards even building hotels there, because it is obviously very convenient with the stadium, training grounds, a centre of excellence and hotels. All of that would be worth billions.”

While Safa hopes to convince government to return the stadium, they would be happy, if allowed, to enter into a shareholding agreement.

Nxesi confirmed to the Sunday Times that he had a meeting scheduled with Safa this month. ‘‘I do not want to preempt that meeting because I do not know what we will talk about,” he said.

The original FNB Stadium was built in 1989 at a cost of R52-million, but it had appreciated to about R500-million when Safa gave it up.

The Safa president said it was a concern that football no longer has a venue to call its own, three years after hosting the World Cup.

‘‘It is a matter we must discuss because it means we are back where we started. Football in SA, again, does not own its own stadium.”