BBK UNPLUGGED | Broken promises and own goals

“Do it again, Danny” is what most of the South African Football Association (Safa) members who voted yesterday said with their ballots when the organisation held its elective congress.

Their majority voted for more of the same mess in support of the presidency of embattled Daniel Alexander Jordaan as he retained the head seat at the table of the football-controlling body in the land by 157 votes.

In doing so, they crushed Sandile Donald Zungu’s ambition to ascend to the position as the AmaZulu FC president managed to garner only 82 votes.

This is not so much a Zungu defeat as an overwhelming endorsement of the status quo. The victory which has dishonesty disguised as continuity.

Dishonesty because in 2022, when he won against Ria Ledwaba by 186 votes to 27 (Solly Mohlabeng received eight votes), Jordaan told all and sundry he was serving a final term.

The long and short of it is that the majority of the Safa national executive committee (NEC) hero-worship their leader in a manner not dissimilar to how some creatures in Animal Farm believed Napoleon was always right.

Four years later, a suspicious bout of selective amnesia conveniently struck the septuagenarian.

Gana: “In 2022, you said you will not avail yourself to be re-elected as the president. Are you available? Have you told your members that you are available for election? Are you retracting the statement that you made in 2022?

Jordaan: “That is a matter I will discuss with the members. There [are] no nominations out...”

Gana: “Did you not say in 2022 that you are serving the last term?”

Gana: “I’m asking you if you said that.”

Gana: “You don’t recall. You did say it, that this is your last term... But you’re available?”

Jordaan: “I don’t know. Members must nominate.”

Jordaan and his supporters know very well that he said so on live television during the Soccer Africa show on SuperSport. They also know that the president of Fifa, the world football governing body, and members of its council may serve for no more than three terms of office.

They have no qualms with a leader cloaked in controversy in a country where dishonesty borders on flashing a middle finger to a tolerant population.

Ours, after all, is a country where a politician can take to the podium and promise people a million houses. Years later, when not a single structure has been constructed, and that person is confronted about the promise, he advances an explanation that doesn’t really hold water.

Speaking of water, the leader in that ministry is drowning in a dam of profanity.

Another politician who wants to be president blurts out a promise of building a private school in an impoverished area. To this day, the private school remains a pipe dream.

The long and short of it is that the majority of the Safa national executive committee (NEC) hero-worship their leader in a manner not dissimilar to how some creatures in Animal Farm believed Napoleon was always right.

Maybe the payment of the honorarium is the magic wand, as members of the bloated NEC happily accepted the handsome R153,000 payout, although the Bafana Bafana players who achieved a historic progression to the knockout stage of the World Cup have not yet received their bonuses.

This reinforces the perception of leadership by patronage.

Why is propping up a person without probing areas of concern in their leadership a common cause in our republic? Whether their missteps cast the organisation in a negative light and soiled its image, it is no bother.

There’s been talk that Jordaan will contest the election, win it and step down.

Whether the leadership stands opposite to turning the institution into a credible force is neither here nor there.

It worries them not that the Fun Valley pleasure resort that Safa pretends to be the national technical training centre looks nothing like the R60m it was purportedly spent on.

What does this victory for a fourth consecutive term represent for the country? Time will tell.