SAFA sack two vice-presidents
The South African Football Association removed Gay Mokoena and Ria Ledwaba as vice-presidents at their National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on Saturday evening.
Gay Mokoena. Pic: Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix
Mokoena had already left his role as Safa CEO in mid-April, sending a long letter to the NEC entitled the “Mokoena Report”, where he accused Safa president Danny Jordaan of going against his own organisation’s constitution.
Mokoena made several allegations again Jordaan, which Safa refuted, and the NEC have seemingly backed their president, in voting to have Mokoena removed.
The firing of Ledwaba is more surprising, but she has been removed because she wrote a letter to the minister of sports and recreation Nathi Mthethwa, instead of first raising the matter with Safa.
“The overwhelming majority of the NEC members expressed their disappointment in both vice-presidents Ria Ledwaba and Gay Mokoena in their handling of Safa matters in the public domain and their engagement with third parties,” read a Safa statement on Sunday.
“The NEC expressed their displeasure at the two’s violation of … Safa’s laid down internal processes and understood this as lack of confidence in the Association’s constitutional and governance structures. It is on this basis that the NEC decided that the two vice-presidents should be removed and replaced.”
While replacements for Mokoena and Ledwaba have not been announced yet, Safa said one of those would be another female. Ledwaba became the first ever female Safa vice-president when she was appointed un June 2018.
“The Safa Constitution guarantees that one woman, at the minimum, must be appointed as one of the vice-presidents and the Association remains committed to promoting women in the decision-making structures,” continued the statement.
Safa added that both Mokoena and Ledwaba would remain on their NEC.
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