SAFA presidential hopeful Ria Ledwaba’s ambitions to ascend to the association’s top officer suffered a major blow at the weekend when the first region to back her publicly – the SAFA Vhembe region in Limpopo – witnessed a change of leadership.
Vhembe nominated Ledwaba, who hails from Limpopo recently, but long-serving regional president George Kubayi and General Secretary Eric Muneri (Main Picture) failed to retain their positions during the elective congress, which took place this past weekend.
The pair led the region’s campaign to go for Ledwaba against incumbent Dr Danny Jordaan. However, the region has since elected Jabulani Ndobe as its new leader and Sam Matodzi as the secretary.
The new regime is believed to be backing Dr Jordaan for his third term in the country’s top football position.
“We have just been given a new mandate by our conscience, which are our LFAs. Obviously, we will listen to the mandate of the LFAs,” newly elected regional president Ndobe told FARPost when asked if the new leadership would continue to support Ledwaba as per the decision of the outgoing regime.
“For now, with this current leadership, we can not pronounce whom we are going with because the committee will only meet on the 11th of June,” he said.
The SAFA national elections will take place on 25 June 2022. This means that all the five regions in Limpopo that have four voting delegations are now vouching for the re-election of Dr Jordaan.
The other region that is in support of Ledwaba’s Presidency is the SAFA Tugela region in KwaZulu-Natal.
Each of the 52 regions in the country have four voting delegates, 12 associate members have two voting representatives, and one vote from the 36 SAFA NEC members.
The rest of the new SAFA Vhembe region executive committee are; Colbert Nempumbuluni, the first vice president, Ephraim Singo, second Deputy vice president and Nora Mudzielwana, the third deputy vice president, while James Maluleke has been elected as the region’s treasure.
SAFA Limpopo president Jack Maluleka oversaw the elections.
