Sport Minister Fikile Mbalula and SA Football Association president Danny Jordaan will meet Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke today for an update on the governing body's investigation into match fixing allegations around Bafana Bafana.
The allegations centred around Bafana matches in the build-up to the 2010 World Cup.
The meeting in Zurich, Switzerland, is to examine progress in resolving if there was any collusion by Safa officials in the bribing of players who played against South Africa in warm-up friendlies ahead of the global showpiece.
The tawdry affair has now dragged on for five years with little resolution. The official investigation by South Africa made no initial headway with little enthusiasm to go after the culprits, so Fifa said it would take over.
But Fifa, too, has stalled on the matter with their prosecutor Michael Garcia, who has since resigned, concentrating his efforts over the years on the bid to find corruption behind Qatar's successful 2022 World Cup bid.
"There has been not enough work from all sides so I've told our ethics committee they had to now do some proper work on the South Africa issue," Valcke told Sowetan in Cairo yesterday.
"It became an unnecessary argument between Fifa and the sport minister but we have to admit not enough has been done on either end."
Fifa agreed in April 2013 to allow the South African government to set up an inquiry after finding strong evidence of match-fixing in games involving Bafana in the weeks before the World Cup, with accusations that referees manipulated the games for illegal Asian betting syndicates.
But the lack of progress on the sport minister's part led Fifa to take away the investigation. Mbalula was indignant and flew to Zurich to remonstrate but was told not to interfere in football matters or face being responsible for South Africa being suspended from world football.
Mbalula has on several occasions criticised Fifa. Last month he accused them of being "very inefficient" in match-fixing investigations.
Mbalula questions fifa
Sport Minister Fikile Mbalula and SA Football Association president Danny Jordaan will meet Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke today for an update on the governing body's investigation into match fixing allegations around Bafana Bafana.
The allegations centred around Bafana matches in the build-up to the 2010 World Cup.
The meeting in Zurich, Switzerland, is to examine progress in resolving if there was any collusion by Safa officials in the bribing of players who played against South Africa in warm-up friendlies ahead of the global showpiece.
The tawdry affair has now dragged on for five years with little resolution. The official investigation by South Africa made no initial headway with little enthusiasm to go after the culprits, so Fifa said it would take over.
But Fifa, too, has stalled on the matter with their prosecutor Michael Garcia, who has since resigned, concentrating his efforts over the years on the bid to find corruption behind Qatar's successful 2022 World Cup bid.
"There has been not enough work from all sides so I've told our ethics committee they had to now do some proper work on the South Africa issue," Valcke told Sowetan in Cairo yesterday.
"It became an unnecessary argument between Fifa and the sport minister but we have to admit not enough has been done on either end."
Fifa agreed in April 2013 to allow the South African government to set up an inquiry after finding strong evidence of match-fixing in games involving Bafana in the weeks before the World Cup, with accusations that referees manipulated the games for illegal Asian betting syndicates.
But the lack of progress on the sport minister's part led Fifa to take away the investigation. Mbalula was indignant and flew to Zurich to remonstrate but was told not to interfere in football matters or face being responsible for South Africa being suspended from world football.
Mbalula has on several occasions criticised Fifa. Last month he accused them of being "very inefficient" in match-fixing investigations.
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