Former Safa CEO Dennis Mumble came out guns blazing questioning the association’s code of conduct following Ria Ledwaba’s failure to attend her presidential manifesto launch at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
Ledwaba’s lawyer, Leruma Thobejane, revealed that if Ledwaba had attended the presidential manifesto and announced her acceptance to run for the Safa presidency, she would have been expelled from the race with immediate effect.
When addressing members of the media and civil society at the event, Mumble accused Safa bigwigs of “disqualifying people who are a threat” to them.
“It’s shocking, I was sitting there hoping to see Ria walk in here,” said Mumble.
“Seeing all of you here coming to support the need for change in South African football gets me emotional.”
The ex-Safa CEO went on to express his views on the need for change within the hierarchy of South African football.
“I want to use a football analogy. As a player when you walk in that field you know what predominates there, you know what you need to do there including the laws of the game, you know the size of the field, and goal post and that it’s all done before you enter that field.
“On top of that, you also have the competition rules and those competition rules say for all of those teams that play if there are two teams that are tied up at the end of that round of the competition the winner will be declared by way of goal difference and other criteria. What I’m trying to say here is the fact that the rules are set long before you enter the game.
“What we are seeing right now in South African football is an election campaign with no rules and the rules are made up as we go along.
“First of all, I’m a researcher, I was asked to look deeper into what’s happening in South African football now and analyse the changes that have been made, and the constitutional amendments that have been made.
“What I can tell you right now is that Safa has become a closed society. The constitution is designed to make Safa a closed society because now you have so many impediments to qualification for office in Safa, and South African publications have no right anymore to actually participate in the game unless a few selected individuals have said so, then you will be allowed to do so.
“There’s a governance committee that has been appointed. Under the old constitution, there used to be an electoral committee and that electoral committee’s work was to be governed by the electoral code of the South African Football Association. I wrote that code to make sure that participation is fair, open and transparent.
“However, the new constitution removed all of that and put together again a new governance committee. I think a few weeks before the Safa congress, some names were announced in the media. And I can tell you now that none of them knew that they were being appointed to the committee as I have spoken to them except for one person. Two of them declined after that saga. So, the people who are supposed to oversee the elections are being questioned as a result of that mess.
“Then you have a scenario where you see a memorandum that comes saying you shouldn’t do this and that. Who made that rule cause it doesn’t exist. I know the word for word what’s in that electoral code and whoever issued the letter doesn’t have the authority to issue that letter in the first place. When we talk about sports law that’s my language, it’s what I do nowadays.”
He added it was surprising that the general secretary of the association does not have the authority to decide on matters of competency.
“This thing of saying no Lucas Radebe and other legends don’t belong in football, I don’t understand that part of it. If you say they are not qualified train them as you have the responsibility to do so,” he added.
