Danny’s insatiable drive for success
DANNY JORDAAN has an insatiable love affair with success.
Fresh from ensuring a remarkable turnaround of fortunes for the national teams, Jordaan put in place plans to establish a sound financial base for the South African Football Association (Safa).
“We need more money,” the Safa president says during our interview in his office at Safa House, “so next year our focus will be on strengthening our financial base. Our biggest challenge is the absence of strong provincial structures. In the next few years that’s what we want to do. We need to have strong provincial structures like rugby and cricket.”
That achieved, Safa headquarters will have their responsibilities minimised and they’ll be able to execute their mandates more effectively, Jordaan believes.
“We need the structures to be strong enough and have the power to run the game in their provinces. That way they will be close to the regional LFAs (Local Football Associations) which they are responsible for. If we get that right, it will allow us to reduce the NEC which, I believe, is currently too big. And, for all this to be possible, we need more money.”
Not that the country’s football governing body is in a poor financial state. Far from it, for in a little over a year since he became president Safa dramatically improved financial status – the association announcing a R10m profit at their annual meeting two months ago. This is a far cry from the losses incurred in the previous two years.
Over the previous years, Jordaan looked much older than his 63 years –, the strain of leading the country’s two bids to host the World Cup as well as presiding over the event in 2010 has taken its toll.
Those eye-bags and wrinkled forehead are now gone, Jordaan’s face telling the story of a contented man suffering little stress.
And with good reason, too, for the national teams are back among the continent’s elite – Bafana Bafana qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time since 2008, and doing so in style as they went through their six qualifying matches without a loss.
It is the success at junior level that has Jordaan looking ahead to the future with glee.
“Our Under 17 and Under 20 national teams have qualified for their African Nations Cup tournaments. And they did so in a special way. We beat Egypt home and away to qualify for the under 17 tournament and that is something no South African team has ever done before. Our under 20s beat Cameroon to book their place at the Youth Championships. These countries always qualify for these events and for us to beat them says we are on the right track.”
That much is perhaps confirmed by the fact that a number of the players who play for the junior sides are part of Shakes Mashaba’s Bafana.
“The fact that you have the likes of Rivaldo Coetzee, Fagrie Lackay and Dumisani Msibi in the squad indicates the strength we have going forward and this can mean we are on track for Vision 2022.”
That these successes materialised so soon after the new Safa leadership took over has Jordaan confident the future is bright for the local game.
“This was one of the best years of South African football,” he says, the twinkle in his eye giving away his pride in having presided over those 12 months, especially given the challenges we had when we came in.
“The closing chapter of the year was failure to qualify for Brazil 2014 and then there was also the report on match-fixing which implicated our people.
“As a consequence we lost Puma, and Absa also did not renew their contract. We had recorded losses of R46m and our national teams had not made it to the continental events in years. But we close this year knowing that we’ve had substantial success. We can look back at what has been an incredible year of recovery.”
That they begin next year with the implementation of the R1.2 billion Siyaya television deal as well as the opening of the R10m Technical Centre has Jordaan looking forward to yet another fantastic 12 months.
“Our plan is to continue strengthening our development and we have plans to launch the provincial academies in the nine provinces. Already there’s the Hoy Park Centre in KZN and we are looking to get support to have others in the other provinces.
“The market has reacted positively to the changes we have brought into Safa and the success of the national team has helped. So we are likely to add one or two other commercial partners in the new year. The signing of the Siyaya deal was a game-changer.”
The cherry on top of this year of success will be a good tournament for Bafana at the African Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea, as well as a top-four finish for both the Under 17 and Under 20 at their championships – a feat that will see the two sides qualify for the world championships.
“We’ve had early successes and there’s nothing wrong with having hope and huge expectations. It’s good to believe that we can win. But let’s not put undue pressure on the teams. We need to do well at Afcon and we want to qualify for the junior World Cups.”