Safa staff threaten to down tools over poor pay
Employees of the South African Football Association (Safa) have threatened to down tools if the football governing body does not deal with grievances over their salaries.
In an e-mail addressed to Safa CEO Lydia Monyepao, the staff say they are unhappy about not getting salary increases while the association constantly pays hundreds of thousands of rands in honorariums to its 54 national executive members.
If the staff fail to get a favourable response to their March 22 ultimatum, they will carry through their threat, they said. Such an action could adversely affect Banyana Banyana’s preparations for the Confederation of African Football (Caf) Women’s Olympic encounter as they handle the national team’s travel and accommodation bookings. The fourth-round fixture will be played on April 1 (away) and April 7 (home).
Yesterday Caf said it was concerned about the respect and image of football in South Africa after the search and seizure raid by the Hawks serious commercial crime investigations unit at Safa House last week, during which a laptop, external hard drives, a USB drive and documents were seized.
Hawks spokesperson Katlego Mogale said they acted on allegations from a criminal case opened by former Safa executive member Willie Mooka against Safa president Danny Jordaan in 2020. Jordaan is accused of fraud and theft amounting to R1.3m from 2014 to 2018, allegedly using the organisation’s resources for his personal gain.
Caf said in a statement it “is looking into this matter based on and in accordance with the Caf and Fifa statutes and regulations, and has requested Safa to provide Caf with a report, indicating that Safa and Jordaan at no stage and under no circumstances violated or breached the Caf and Fifa statutes and regulations”.
The employees were angered at a staff meeting at Safa House on Wednesday when Monyepao and CFO Gronie Hluyo informed them that their request for salary hikes was turned down by the national executive committee (NEC).
“It was a regular staff meeting with the CEO and CFO. Matters came to a head when increments and salaries arose. The two said there would be none. That’s when there were heated exchanges between them and the staff,” a source said.
“They said they made the proposal [for increases] to the president and the NEC but it was turned down. They said they made it at the last NEC meeting in December. They indicated that they were at the mercy of the NEC as everyone is.
“Our argument is that while the cost of living keeps getting higher, our salaries have stayed the same. But Safa has money to pay the NEC honorarium on a regular basis, yet it has none for overworked and overstretched employees who remain poorly remunerated. We stressed that cost-cutting measures have reduced the staff complement from 300 to below 50 over the years.”
Safa has 40 people working at its Nasrec head office in the referees, competitions, legal, finance, technical, IT, and communications departments and the office of the president. The finance department under Hluyo has eight people, while others have been reduced during cost-cutting measures over the years.
“The other point we are not happy about is that almost 50 NEC members are flown from around the country, booked in plush five-star hotels, wined and dined for the duration of that weekend, yet the people who run the office are given the cold shoulder. Staff feel that these meetings can be done virtually without necessitating the cost, if there has to be a cost-cutting exercise. It is a sad situation.”
When Monyepao and Hluyo left, the employees convened an impromptu meeting during which they formed a staff committee mandated to inform management that “we will down tools on March 22 if our demands are not met”.
“This includes staff members in other eight provinces. Each province will have one member.”
Asked for comment, Safa said: “Thank you for the inquiry, but we do not discuss internal Safa matters with members of the media because these are confidential.”
Safa received R47m from Caf after Bafana Bafana finished third at Afcon 2023.
“The players have been paid but we are worried that the portion of that money that will go to the association will end up with the NEC members instead of assisting with addressing staff grievances.”