Ex-Safa deputy president accuses Jordaan of bullying

Former Safa SA Football Association (Safa) deputy president Gladwyn White has become the latest official to lambast the organisation’s president Danny Jordaan, accusing him of interference in operational matters and launching a bid for a fourth presidential term.

Jordaan initially said he would leave the association in 2027 after his third term.

In a scathing letter sent to Safa’s national executive committee (NEC) members at the weekend, White accused Jordaan of bullying CEO Lydia Monyepao into illegally signing off a security contract, among a raft of allegations he made against the Safa president.

He added in his missive that “only a revolution in the form of a commission of inquiry” would revive the troubled organisation. White’s letter – titled “an extreme sad situation at our beloved football headquarters” – further describes Jordaan as someone who has “lost morals and ethics” in leading the association, doing as he pleases without any accountability.

“It is on record that the president regularly called the CEO [Monyepao], bullying her to sign the 24-months contract against the three months’ probation resolution of the NEC as early as the Sunday morning of the 10th of December,” read White’s letter.

“Bullying by its nature should be a serious offence, and bullying a woman of any sort should be condemned irrespective of the culprit. In the back of our mind, we must always be reminded of how our former CEO [Tebogo Motlanthe] was reduced to a glorified clerk [as stated in his letter of resignation], a conduct he refused to continue suffocating under.”

White also suggested in the letter that sounded resigned to seeing Monyepao may quit: “Safa really deserves better, and failure to nip this anomaly in the bud will tarnish the brand further as we are about to lose another CEO. The high turnover of CEOs and vice-presidents is a worrying case study.”

Furthermore, White alleged that Jordaan misused R22m Safa had received as a loan from Fifa. “The president must tell the regions how he spent the R22,000,000 borrowed from Fifa, approved by the former NEC to settle all outstanding regional grants, clubs’ travelling subsidies and competitions’ prize money.”

White and Monyepao couldn’t be reached for comment as they never answered their cellphones when contacted. On the other hand, Jordaan provided a brief reply, saying “should you not ask Lydia?”

Late on Monday, Safa released a statementhttps://www.safa.net/2024/03/04/safa-dismisses-claims-about-the-ceo/ in which Monyepao didn’t directly respond to the allegations made by White but stated in a one-liner: “The president and I have a healthy working relationship.”

- This story has been updated to reflect Safa’s response