Chief Mwelo Nonkonyana, who has lost almost every legal battle he has waged against Safa, has launched another fight with the country’s football governing body.
The former Safa president wants the results of Saturday’s elective congress nullified. Nonkonyana had wanted to challenge Danny Jordaan for Safa’s top seat but was deemed ineligible as he didn’t belong to any Safa structure.
He fought against being deemed ineligible and lost, before fighting to have the decision to fire him from Safa in 2014 overturned and re-instated as vice president. He lost again and then launched a court interdict to have the Safa elections postponed from March 24. All of this happened this year.
Those elections were eventually postponed to Saturday. Jordaan was re-elected unopposed after Ace Ncobo withdrew in the morning of the elective congress, alleging that the process was “illegal and unlawful”. Nonkonyana now wants the results nullified.
“Earlier in the year, I voiced my concerns about the supposed under-hand dealings from the Football Transformation Forum (FTF, which backed Jordaan) in some of the Safa regions ahead of the elective congress as well as the involvement of Safa national council members in conducting elections to make sure that the leadership from regions is the leadership to support the re-election of Dr Jordaan lackeys,” Nonkonyana said.
“The plan was to remove all members of the council who were opposed to the manner Dr Jordaan was handling our football affairs in this country. As a result both vice presidents (Mr Elvis Shishana and Mr Lucas Nhlapho) and many progressive members of the council have not been elected at the sham congress.”
There were hints that Ncobo or his backers would challenge the outcome of the elections after the former referee withdrew from the race. Ncobo said he had to come and tick all the boxes so that should there be a challenge in the future he has grounds to stand on.
“I wish to applaud Mr Ace Ncobo for maintaining a principled stance that an elective congress of Safa can only be held in terms of Safa statutes and in accordance with electoral code and refused to be part of the unconstitutional meeting,” Nonkonyana said.
“I salute him and call upon all those who uphold and respect the constitution of Safa to follow his stance and to distance themselves from illegitimate leadership that was ‘elected’ at the meeting in question. I am happy to announce that many regions have vowed to support me and many leaders of SA football in challenging the convention and all the decisions adopted at the meeting in question. We will instruct our lawyers to lodge application to quash the holding of this bogus elective congress yesterday (on Saturday) and to set aside the ‘election’ of the leadership at such a meeting.”
The electoral committee chairperson McCaps Motimele deemed the elections free and fair.
Safa have dismissed Nonkonyana’s challenge.
“Which case (against us) has he won? The people who matter, who belong to Safa structures and were given a mandate were at the Sandton Convention Centre (in the elective congress),” Safa spokesperson Dominic Chimhavi said. “Chief doesn’t belong to any Safa structures. It’s you guys (the media) who are propping him.”