South African Football Association (Safa) president Danny Jordaan says there is no way they could give Banyana Banyana players a share of the R28m Fifa gave to the organisation for football development in South Africa.
Safa and the South African women’s team were in a bitter row over money ahead of coach Desiree Ellis’s team’s departure to New Zealand and Australia for the World Cup on Wednesday.
But luckily Patrice Motsepe’s Motsepe Foundation came in to save the day to give Banyana’s players the extra geld they wanted.
Banyana were originally given R562 864 per player by Fifa for the tournament, but wanting a share of the R28m given to Safa by Fifa as well, they boycotted their World Cup send-off game against Botswana on Sunday.
Die storie het lelik gedraai, with Jordaan explaining: “Fifa send you the money and a document called the ‘contract agreed objectives’.
“In other words, when they give you money, in that contract they allocate this amount to go there and this goes there. Then they send their own auditors to audit…
“If you steal one dollar, you can rest assured we won’t be funded next year.
“In this case, Fifa’s letter is explicit – [one payment] must go to the players and the other money they’ll come and audit it.
“So Fifa does not give you money in a bag that you can do whatever you want, they transfer the money with specific instructions.”
The Motsepe Foundation then stumped an undisclosed amount – believed to be R6m according to SABC Sport, which means Banyana’s stars will get an additional R230 000, while they also scored R2m from Ithuba.
matthew.marcus@inl.co.za