Johannesburg - The SA Football Association (Safa) will face an independent inquiry into a Fifa report on match fixing, SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) president Gideon Sam confirmed on Tuesday.
“They are coming to us and asking us for assistance in putting together an independent commission that can deal with these issues,” Sam said at a media briefing.
Sam could not confirm when the inquiry would start, after Sascoc met with Safa officials in Johannesburg.
“We wanted to get an update on where we are, and the response we got, which is to our satisfaction, is that there are two processes that will be running parallel.” Sam said he was satisfied with the processes followed by Safa, with the football body facing a number of allegations aside from the alleged fixing scandal, after a damning, anonymous leaked report, accusing Safa officials of corruption, was handed to the Hawks.
“That matter has been reported to the police and they are working on that and many of those matters remain sub judice, but we're happy that issue has been dealt with,” Sam said.
“The other part of that issue of course is the issue of governance.
“There is a feeling that issues were not dealt with in a proper manner within Safa.” While the leaked document was being investigated, the Fifa report into match fixing had been the main focus of Tuesday's meeting.
Five Safa officials - president Kirsten Nematandani, acting chief executive Dennis Mumble, Ace Kika, Barney Kujane and Adele Carelse - were suspended in December after they were implicated in the Fifa probe into corruption, revolving around Bafana Bafana's warm-up games ahead of the 2010 World Cup.
The Safa national executive committee (NEC) later reversed the decision and reinstated the senior staffers in January following a meeting with sports minister Fikile Mbalula.
The NEC appointed Safa vice-president, Chief Mwelo Nonkonyana, along with chairman of the football body's legal and constitutional committee, Pooby Govindasamy, and chairman of security, protocol and fairplay, Jan Koopman, to carry out the inquiry.
Sam said Sascoc would seek advice from Mbalula regarding details of the inquiry. - Sapa