Safa anticipate huge fiscal loss
The South African Football Association (Safa) will announce a loss of about R74 million at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) this weekend, with the financial struggles of the footballing body mainly down to the collapse of their broadcasting deal with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).
Safa and the SABC did sign a new deal in October, but that deal is worth less than half of the money from the previous arrangement.
“The issues in the previous financial year were with the broadcasting rights. We used to have a revenue stream there of about R110 million, but we didn’t have that in the past 18 months, and we are going to report a loss, in terms of our financial performance, of approximately R74 million,” said Safa’s acting CEO Gay Mokoena at a press conference in Johannesburg yesterday.
“On the positive side, we have renewed our broadcasting rights with the SABC, so now we have a stream again,” added Mokoena.
“We have signed a four year contract ... to assist us to stabilise, and it is not with a fixed income, we will be reviewing it every year, as the financial situation improves for them as well as us.”
Mokoena said the amount for the first years was R50 million, ‘not all cash’. Value in Kind is a part of it.”
Safa added that they are in discussion with four major sponsors about a new kit deal, with the contract with Nike having ended following the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations finals in Egypt.
“We have had four approaches from big brands, we are on the verge of signing, but we are just crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s,” said Mokoena.
“It should happen in the next 30 days,” he added, also confirming that Nike were one of the four brands in discussions with Safa.
“We are very excited about the deals on the table.”
The Safa CEO said that the National Women’s League, had “attracted an amazing amount of interest from the corporate sector,” while Safa are on the verge of securing another sponsor for
Banyana Banyana as well. “We have signed an agreement, before we announce it there just needs to be a cup of tea shared between the new sponsor and Sasol.”
The association have also signed a new four-year deal with South African Breweries.