The Confederation of African Football (CAF) president, Dr Patrice Motsepe said he didn’t like the bickering between SAFA and the PSL that occurred recently.
Motsepe was speaking at the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (COSAFA) AGM 2023 in Sandton in Johannesburg on Friday.
He said in football no one is the loser or bigger than the other because all of them are here to serve football and disunity looks bad for the COSAFA region as a whole.
His comments came after the South African Football Association and the Premier Soccer League were at loggerheads recently after the latter was unhappy with some proposals and also comments from SAFA Technical Director Walter Steenbok.
These proposals were tabled at the SAFA Indaba, but the PSL, having seen the proposals, decided that they will shun the Indaba, which was an unanimous decision of PSL NEC, the highest body that makes decisions on behalf of all 32 clubs in the National Soccer League (mother body of the PSL).
The PSL blamed SAFA for the issue as the association has not conducted CAF courses in South Africa since 2017, leading to SA coaches needing to go outside of the country to obtain coaching qualifications.
“I had a discussion with [SAFA president] Danny Jordaan, I didn’t like what I saw in the media,” said Motsepe in the AGM.
“There is no family where there are no disagreements, including arguments, it doesn’t exist. In fact, when there are no disagreements or arguments, it means that somebody is a dictator.
“I remember the first meeting I had as the president of CAF, I said to them, ‘I want you all to hear what you people think’ and Panyaza Lesufi [Premier of Gauteng] was there.”
The fight between SAFA and the PSL has been going on for years and it doesn’t look like anytime soon it will be resolved.
Meanwhile, Motsepe said he was also left angry when COSAFA was involved in a disagreement with SAFA, which has since also been resolved.
SAFA was not happy that South African provinces were hosting COSAFA tournaments but when they want that money to be spent in their own programmes such as ABC Motsepe League national play-offs, the same governments say they have exhausted all the resources to the COSAFA.
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SAFA said this cannot continue and other countries should also lobby to host these tournaments. This disagreement was put to bed recently, as SAFA and COSAFA held a “fruitful meeting”, both organisations said.
“I read in the newspapers or in the media that there is a disagreement between SAFA and COSAFA, that shouldn’t happen,” Motsepe said.
“Any disagreement you discuss privately and you resolve it [privately]. It is unacceptable, it is unacceptable.
“Danny is not just the president of SAFA, but it is my advisor [at CAF] and this should never happen. He should have provided leadership to tell his people – ‘don’t go public’, you don’t do that. It reflects disunity amongst us.”
