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Feuding soccer fan bodies vie for legitimacy, as Safa plays a murky role

Kaizer Chiefs superfan Saddam Maake at the "Return to Play: It's in Your Hands" vaccination social mobilisation campaign at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on October 8 2021.
Kaizer Chiefs superfan Saddam Maake at the "Return to Play: It's in Your Hands" vaccination social mobilisation campaign at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on October 8 2021.
Image: Gallo Images/Darren Stewart

The battle to lead SA football supporters is heating up between two feuding organisations, the National Football Supporters Association (Nafsa) and the newly-formed SA National Football Supporters (Sanasu).

Sanasu is a new body formed in March by SA’s so-called “superfans” led by the popular Saddam Maake and Joy “Mama Joy” Chauke as president and secretary-general respectively.

Despite being less than a month old, Sanasu has forged a good relationship with the SA Football Association (Safa). The much older Nafsa alleges the new organisation was formed because Safa wanted to start a supporters’ organisation under a leadership that is close to the SA ruling body. It says Sanasu was started because of Nafsa’s ongoing disagreements with Safa and other stakeholders.

The suggestion, Nafsa said, is that Safa would rather sanction an organisation it has some degree of control over than deal with an independent body.  

Safa has described Nafsa as “non-existent” despite numerous email engagements between the organisations that TimesLIVE has seen. 

Sanasu president Maake claimed the new organisation's has been granted affiliation status to Safa and an office in Safa House.

“Safa gave us an affiliation letter to make sure we are the only [supporters] organisation, which is affiliated to them,” long-time and famous Kaizer Chiefs fan Maake said, despite Safa saying a request will be tabled at its congress on March 26.

“I’ve got the letter which says our affiliation was approved on March 10.”

Nafsa has been trying to become an affiliate of Safa since 2012 and is still waiting for a response in their request to get an office in the association's building next to the FNB Stadium in Nasrec.

A Nafsa official, who did not want to be named, said they are being punished for demanding the reopening of stadiums for football fans in the country. Nafsa last month organised a march to Orlando Stadium to demand the reopening of football grounds on the day of a Soweto derby between Chiefs and Orlando Pirates, and have planned others around the country. 

Nafsa acting CEO Siya Loliyane described the formation of Sanasu as an attempt to pit supporters against each other, rather than pulling in the same direction in line with her organisation’s vision of unifying soccer fans in SA.

But Maake said he left Nafsa, where he had served as the deputy president, because of several wrongdoings by his old organisation. He alleged Nafsa does not serve in the best interest of supporters.

He described his old organisation as a disruptive force that has been rejected by football stakeholders and driven by the love of money.

“I’m no longer with Nafsa. I started that supporters’ organisation back in 1992 and it was called SA Football Supporters Association (Safsa) and people from Bloemfontein hijacked it,” Maake said.

“We tried to talk to them that we need to work together. They said, ‘No, but we want to use the name.’ I told them they can’t use the name [without the people who started the organisation] and they changed it to Nafsa.

“We need an organisation that when they go to Safa, they don’t ask for VIP tickets for themselves. They need to make requests for tickets for supporters. And they used our profile to get sponsors without our approval and knowledge.”

Loyilane dismissed Maake’s accusations saying the prominent Chiefs supporter left under a cloud of allegations against him.

“The organisation is not about discussing its internal issues in public but in the interest of disclosure, Saddam has been a member of Nafsa and is one of the founding members of our organisation,” Loliyane said.

“He was the deputy president but there were certain allegations against him that came from supporters. He was asked to appear in front of the exco [executive committee], but he opted not to take that opportunity and went to do whatever he is doing right now,” she said.

“In terms of what we stand for, we can’t say we don’t have good relations with Safa, the PSL or any other stakeholders but as an organisation we will always maintain our independence. Also, we need to remember that relationships are not defined by always getting along.

“In any relationship, you need to state your case and the other party must state their case too. It’s about finding a common ground, which we have been trying to do with the stakeholders

“We can’t, at the expense of supporters, agree to whatever the stakeholder is saying because the main priority and the responsibility that we have is to the supporters. Our door remains open to Safa, and we have been trying to have interactions with them, we’ve had interactions with the PSL and it’s an ongoing process.”

Safa’s head of stakeholder relations, Dominic Chimhavi, said he did not want to talk about Nafsa as they are “non-existent”. He confirmed Safa has received Sanusa's application to become an affiliated member.

“From what we have received from them, they have fulfilled all the requirements,” Chimhavi said.

“Now the Safa congress will deliberate their membership and they are the one who are going to take that decision. On the other issue [an office for Sanasu at Safa House] it will all depend on the approval of their membership,” Chimhavi said.

“The only organisation that has fulfilled all the requirements so far is Sanasu. They’ve given us their application and they are being considered by the Safa congress.

“As for the other organisation [Nafsa], we have never even understood who they are. We have never had any interactions with them.

“We know and recognise Sanasu because they’ve been on the ground. Whenever Bafana Bafana and all our national teams are playing, we always see them.

“The other guys [Nafsa] just write us a letter, but the job of the supporters is not to write the letter to the office The job of the supporters is to support a team, to support us and to mobilise the fans — their job is to welcome teams back home when they have done well overseas and the only organisation that has done so is Sanasu.

“Saddam and Mama Joy are always at FNB Stadium supporting national teams.

“In terms of meeting our requirements, they are (Nafsa) non-existent.”

Loyilane disputed Chimhavi’s claim and said Nafsa also ticked all the boxes that they needed to for their application to deserve to be recognised by Safa.

Chauke, also a former Nafsa member, is known for switching allegiances as last year she dumped Orlando Pirates for Royal AM.

 


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