The already thin-to-the-bone staff at the South African Football Association (Safa) are taking the fight to the organisation’s top brass in a bid to secure guarantees there won’t be a third retrenchment process.

Staff members met at Safa House earlier this month, with regions joining via digital platforms, and formed a Workers Forum made up of six members to take their grievances to senior management, two Safa officials who asked not to be named told TimesLIVE.

Issues the Workers Forum intend to discuss include staff requesting to see Safa’s financial books and feedback on whether the objectives of the 2020 retrenchment process were achieved. The forum will request details about how the money saved by that huge retrenchment process was used.

“Safa workers already work under stress and with a skeleton staff. We are up in arms with what they call reckless and uncaring bosses,” said one staff member.

“The staff is up in arms because the Safa head honchos have mooted yet another retrenchment process, which is hard on the heels of the last one in 2020, leaving the association with a meagre workforce of 59 staff.

“Staff also want to scrutinise how funds received by the association are being used. Safa has been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently, with president Danny Jordaan at the centre of it all.

“The association recently received R13m from Fifa and instead of using the money for football development and raising the morale of staff, the monies were given to 50 national executive committee (NEC) members as part of their bizarre honorariums.”

Staff at Safa are disgruntled that retrenchments are being mooted after the association expanded its NEC from 34 to 44 members at an ordinary congress on March 26, ahead of the elective congress on June 25 where Jordaan was re-elected president.

Opponents of Jordaan in the camp of challenger Ria Ledwaba alleged the expansion, against the wishes of a Fifa recommendation in 2013 to reduce the size of the NEC, was part of a strategy to keep Jordaan in power.

“Safa has a total of 50 NEC members, a world record despite both Caf and Fifa urging the financially-struggling organisation to cut the number to less than 20,” another staff member said.

“The Safa NEC has been bleeding the association's meagre resources, leading to unfortunate constant staff cuts and poor salaries.”

Reached for comment, Safa CEO Tebogo Motlanthe said there were no planned retrenchments.

“[There is] no planned restructuring or job cuts at the moment. There has been no engagement with staff on issues raised. The Labour Relations Act guides staff on how to raise issues. As management we can’t engage staff through media sources,” Motlanthe said.

Jordaan won at the elective congress at the Sandton Convention Centre by a landslide with 186 votes. Ledwaba received 27 and Solly Mohlabeng received eight votes.