Safa support staff await pay on eve of Afcon
● Ten members of Bafana Bafana’s support staff are facing a bleak Christmas as they wait for their wages from the cash-strapped South African Football Association (Safa).
The 10 are owed money for work they’ve been doing for the national football side this year.
The Sunday Times has learned that some of them, who depend mainly on the income from Safa, have had to plead with banks not to repossess their assets or close their accounts.
“Some members can’t pay for their cars and some are unable to pay the rent. The money owed varies. At least one person is owed for six months. It ranges between three and six months per person. If this month they pay one person then next month they’ll pay somebody else. It’s never all the same,” said a staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The support staff, who are all part-time workers at Safa, include medics, physios, kit managers, video analysts, performance analysts, media officers, security personnel, sports scientists, masseurs and a goalkeeper coach.
“Our payment ranges from R1 500 per day (staff usually spend eight to nine days per camp) and more, depending on the services rendered. Things have been so bad that in one of the camps this year, some Bafana players had to put money together to help one of the support staff members with basics like toiletries.
“The member literally had nothing in his pocket. Nothing. He needed money to get basic necessities,” said the staffer.
The money owed is for work done in the two 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifiers Bafana played against Benin and Rwanda last month.
Another staff member added that in the three years he’s been helping the national team, only once was he paid his salary on time after a Bafana camp.
Bafana played six official matches this year and they included four qualifiers for the 2023 Afcon. “There’s always a delay. Once it was six months.
“When we go into camp we sign an assignment contract for the duration of that camp and we send it to the team manager. He’s supposed to log it and hand it to a system where it needs to be signed off by various people. If that doesn’t happen the support staff don’t get paid.”
Safa is yet to conclude contracts with Bafana players and support staff for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations competition which starts next month in Ivory Coast.
Safa has been struggling to pay match appearance fees to Bafana players this year with payments made at the eleventh hour after players threaten not to honour a match.
One such incident occurred before Bafana played a friendly against Ivory Coast in Abidjan in October when players threatened to boycott the camp.
“A call came from the [Safa] president [Danny Jordaan] to say ‘I don’t understand why the players have not yet been paid’. Players were paid the next morning. So, I don’t understand why we (the support staff) have to wait for so long to get our money. It’s as if players are everything because they need to go and play.”
Safa CEO Lydia Monyepao told the media last week that they’re still talking to the players about how to finalise their bonus structure for the Afcon.
The Sunday Times called Monyepao but she didn’t respond to calls and messages.
“If you query (non-payment), that’s when the victimisation starts. The CEO is aware of our plight but as members, protocol dictates that we can’t go directly to her. We have tried to engage with the team manager (Vincent Tseka, who is employed full-time at Safa), but it goes nowhere,” another support staff member confirmed.