Former SA Football Association (Safa) CEO Leslie Sedibe has had his application for an appeal at the Constitutional Court, in a case in which he was suing Safa for reputational damage, dismissed.

This was after Sedibe’s case to sue Safa for R5m failed via the Johannesburg high court and the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). TimesLIVE understands Sedibe was also suing global ruling body Fifa in the same case.

The case relates to the five-year ban from football and 20,000 Swiss Franc (about R315,000 at the time) fine Sedibe received from Fifa's Independent Ethics Committee on March 14 2016.

This followed the committee's probe into match-fixing in Bafana Bafana's warm-up friendly internationals ahead of the 2010 Fifa World Cup.

A Constitutional Court document informs Sedibe's application to appeal has been dismissed.

It states: “The Constitutional Court has considered the application and has concluded that, although there is an adequate explanation for the applicant's delay in bringing the application, there are no reasonable prospects of success on the merits of the application for leave to appeal.

“Condonation must be refused and, as a consequence, the application for leave to appeal fails.”

This was the latest setback in Sedibe's battle to fight his Fifa ban and fine. Last year Sedibe's court effort to attach Fifa’s trademarks in SA was dismissed by the SCA.

Sedibe also had pursued a case in the Johannesburg high court asking for documents he alleged were in possession of Safa to be turned over to Fifa. That matter also appears to have lost momentum.

“He said Safa must give him certain documents. That was a separate application in the Johannesburg high court,” said Safa CEO Tebogo Motlanthe.

“Last week we received an email from his lawyers saying they were no longer his lawyers in that matter.”

Fifa also banned Safa officials Lindile “Ace” Kika, Steve Goddard and Adeel Carelse related to contracts outsourcing the appointment of match officials to Bafana's build-up matches to the 2010 World Cup to convicted Singaporean match-fixer Wilson Raj Perumal.

In a 500-page report that emerged from the ethics committee probe, Chris Eaton, Fifa's then head of security, said Perumal's company, Football4U, provided the match officials for the four games under investigation.

Sedibe served as Safa CEO from January 2010 to February 2011. 

James Haydock of the law firm representing Safa and Fifa — Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs — was asked for comment on how the case involved Fifa too, and responded: “Our instructions are that Fifa would prefer not to comment on the matter.”

Sedibe's attorney, Sumaiya Khammissa, said the ex-Safa CEO has vowed not to give up the battle to clear his name, and there are plans to resume the court effort against Fifa.

“The purpose of the attachment application [regarding Fifa’s trademark] was to enable our client to serve papers on Fifa, which at the time did not have offices in SA,” Khammissa said via a WhatsApp message.

“We understand Fifa has offices in SA and accordingly our client will file a review application in SA after consulting advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC.

“All we can say is that Fifa’s victory is hollow and the matter is far from over as the courtl has to consider the merits of the main review application as opposed to the attachment application.

“ Mr Sedibe wants to be given an opportunity to clear his name and this will happen now that Fifa has offices in SA.”

Sedibe's cellphone went straight to voicemail, and he did not respond to an SMS message.