Sasfa president, Mandla ‘Shoes’ Mazibuko, described Safa’s decision to appeal the court’s ruling over them being an independent body as a “waste of time,” and that he wasn’t losing sleep over it.
Mazibuko, who was speaking at the draw of the Copa Coca Cola national finals in Bloemfontein yesterday, said that the country’s football mother body was “wasting their resources” on matters that they could be sitting down together in an attempt to resolve.
“Safa are the custodians of football in this country, there’s no doubt about it, but they can’t be jack of all trades,” Mazibuko added. “They have a fair share of their problems they must deal with. They cannot now be running everything in the country like the PSL, schools (sports) and Varsity football for example. These are specialised areas, and they need special attention.
“It is also crucial to remind people that we, as the association, are Schools before football and not the other way round. The well being of our learners take first priority before anything else. There are things like life skills and them doing well in school, which also come into play. Our learners have to excel in all of those areas. There has to be a perfect balance in all of this.
“Having said that, it becomes very crucial to state that we, as the association, cannot spent sleepless nights worrying about people who have issues with us. That’s their problem not ours.”
Meanwhile, Sasfa will hold their Annual General Meeting tomorrow in Bloemfontein, and Mazibuko said it was crucial for the association to be as transparent as possible to its stakeholders and the public.
“All of our nine provinces will be presenting their annual reports in (tomorrow’s) meeting,” Mazibuko said. “The intention of this meeting is to account to where we went wrong and what’s the best way moving forward. It’s very important that we do this. This Safa vs Sasfa matter will also be discussed in this AGM.”
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