The SA Football Association (Safa) has accused the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) of costing it “millions” in sponsorship by trying to destabilise the federation from 2012 to 2014.

In its letter attached to the dossier it submitted to the ministerial committee of inquiry into Sascoc governance issues‚ Safa says recently fired CEO Tubby Reddy had played a key role in the hurling of accusations without attempting to resolve the supposed problems.

He “was instrumental in a very painful matter that severely prejudiced [Safa]‚ costing it millions of rands in actual sponsorship revenue and incalculable reputational damage”‚ Safa said.

“The former Sascoc CEO caused this association major embarrassment in 2012 by repeatedly discussing matters relating to allegations against the association with Sowetan newspaper and other media instead of raising these matters with the association‚ its member in good standing at all times during that period.”

Safa CEO Dennis Mumble on Wednesday told the committee his body was still waiting for answers from Sascoc on its interference and take-over attempts.

“As we speak‚ as we sit here today‚ we still don’t know what motivated that level of interference.”

The Safa covering letter said “a damaging dossier of information circulated in 2013 purported to expose widespread corruption in Safa [was] timed to coincide with the Safa elections” in September that year.

Mumble accused Sascoc of being unethical.

“The manner in which they did it‚ in our view‚ was very unethical because we were not directly told about these [allegations]‚” said Mumble.

“We found these things out in the newspapers. In fact in 2012 we were called by a journalist to say that Sascoc is investigating you because of some complaints.”

Mumble said Sascoc had interfered in matters that had nothing to do with it. In one case Sascoc had demanded answers of Safa in a labour dispute where a coach had been fired after not pitching up to work for seven months.

“Instead of going to the CCMA with his complaint he [the fired coach] goes to Sascoc.

"Sascoc then writes to us to say they want answers from us on why this coach was terminated. That’s not Sascoc’s role‚ Sascoc is not the labour court‚ or the CCMA.”

Mumble explained that Safa had its own dispute resolution mechanisms where local football associations can take issues to regional level‚ and regions to national level‚ but Sascoc had interfered before they’d even had the chance to use them.

“What Sascoc did was to take a complaints from local football associations … but asked the national structure to provide them with answers and then threatening us to put us under administration‚ interfering in the running of the association.”

He said Safa had almost resigned its membership of Sascoc in 2014‚ but the two bodies agreed to a truce.

“We never delved deeper into the underlying causes for their interference in the first place.

“We’ve got speculation‚ and I can talk about the speculation as to why they did it‚ but there comes a time when we need to be told listen‚ these are the reasons.”