Keep your money, Safa tells businesses wanting to make once-off pledges to Banyana

Published Dec 3, 2018

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The South African Football Association (Safa) has refused to accept monetary contributions from businesses that recently pledged to support Banyana Banyana financially, calling them opportunistic.

Russell Paul, Safa's acting CEO said they would not accept the money. He sad the once-off gestures were not good enough and were just handouts.

The monetary pledges were made live on Radio 702 last week after Banyana qualified for the World Cup and it was at the same time revealed that they get way less than their male counterparts. 

The figures that were thrown around were R5000 for each Banyana game while it was R75 000 for Bafana Bafana.

Myway insurance's Renee Otto was the first one to call the radio station last week, saying his company was pledging R100 000 to Banyana. Other companies such as Debonairs Pizza also made their pledges.

However, during an interview with 702's Bongani Bingwa, on Monday morning, Paul said they were not going to accept the money. He said corporate South African was not willing to put money where its mouth was but was happy to suddenly jump on the bandwagon and celebrate Banyana's good results with once off pledges.

"We won't accept it. We appreciate and admire individuals who want to do that but corporate South Africa...no. I don't think it's fair to the ladies. 

"What is that R100 000 going to do? It's going to do nothing. We gave them more than that last night already (Sunday) per person. We gave them a cheque for R2.4million, just for the players.

"Let's talk about sustainable. Let's talk about putting a partnership together. It's our intention to start the national league next year and up until today were still have not had corporate come forward to us and say 'hey guys we would like to do it.'

"We pitched, we did all we needed to and at the very worst case, we will continue running that national league with our funds once again," he said.

Paul also stated that while they at Safa would be the first people to say that what Banyana gets was not fair compared to Bafana, the R75 000 figure was wrong.

"The highest they (Bafana) would get is R60 000 but again as I said, have you asked these questions to the cricket and rugby environments? This is not a South African phenomenon, this is a worldwide phenomenon," Paul said.

The Star

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