Safa president Danny Jordaan has explained why it’d be somewhat difficult in SA to have a stadium named in honour of the late Pele, implying the local football mother body would still entertain such an idea.

The 82-year-old Brazil superstar Pele, who was widely regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time, passed away last Thursday after his battle with colon cancer since September 2021.

On Monday, Fifa president Giovanni Infantino, who was in the city of Santos in Brazil to pay his final respects to Pele, told local reporters that “we’re going to ask every country in the world to name one of their football stadiums with the name of Pele”.

Speaking to Sowetan yesterday, Jordaan explained why it’d be a bit tricky to have a stadium named after Pele in Mzansi, hinting Safa would still support this idea, though Fifa hadn’t given them full details.

“Here in SA it’s unlike most teams in the world where stadiums are owned by teams themselves like Nou Camp and  Santiago Bernabéu are owned by Barcelona and Real Madrid respectively. Stadium ownership is an issue in SA ... it is something we need to discuss as well because other stadiums are generating income through their commercial names,” Jordaan said yesterday. 

“We will have to wait and see what he [Infantino] is proposing because... I mean Pele was very supportive of us as SA. What’s best for now is to wait for Fifa’s full proposal and then we will have to discuss it. The tricky thing in SA is that stadiums are owned by different entities, including local governments, so a lot of people need to be consulted if this is to be a reality in this country.”

Fifa flew the flags of the world’s countries at half-mast on Friday outside its headquarters in Zurich in honour of Pele, whom the organisation named as the greatest player of the 20th century.

Pele, the only player in history to win three World Cups, was laid to rest in Sao Paulo yesterday.