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Safa commits to pay the bonus ‘in next few days’ as CAF stays mum about the R11m
Safa is still chasing CAF over Bafana Bafana’s Afcon quarterfinalists’ prize money after a tournament that ended in Egypt almost two months ago.
This was confirmed by Safa acting chief executive Russell Paul in the wake of reports emanating from the continent that Afcon’s top eight nations have not yet been paid.
Paul told City Press on Friday that the football body had written to CAF on a few occasions, but was yet to receive a written response to the query about the $800 000 (R11.6 million) that is due to South Africa for reaching the quarterfinals.
He provided a rather diplomatic response when asked if the delay had had any impact on Bafana’s promised bonus of R520 000 for each member of the 23-man squad.
Safa has experienced its own financial challenges, a situation that was further exacerbated by the failure to conclude a broadcast deal with the SABC, which previously paid R110 million a year for the exclusive broadcast rights of national team matches.
“We are still awaiting CAF’s official written response to our enquiry. Safa will, however, stand by its commitment to make the bonus payments to the players as promised. The players will in fact be receiving their promised payments within the next few days,” said Paul, without providing a fixed date.
This slightly contradicts what Safa president Danny Jordaan told the media at the team’s hotel in Egypt in July, when he implied that the CAF prize money would come in handy to fill in the gap.
“CAF allocates prize monies, so when the players arrive in Johannesburg, we must not expect the cheque to be handed out then,” he said at the time, adding that the arrangement had been explained to the players.
Reports from Nigeria stated that the Afcon bronze medallists had also written to CAF, asking for clarifications on the money owed.
According to the reports, the Nigerian Football Federation had only received $800 000 from CAF.
The Super Eagles, who eliminated Bafana in the last eight, should get $2 million for finishing third, while $4.5 million and $2.5 million is due to champions Algeria and runners-up Senegal, respectively.
“It is quite odd that it is getting close to two months since we played at the Afcon in Egypt and we are yet to receive our prize money. It is a rather unusual situation for which we require an explanation,” an unnamed Nigerian Football Federation official was quoted as saying.
Whether the prize monies will be paid anytime soon remains to be seen as an extract from leaked minutes of the CAF executive committee meeting in July cast the financial state of the controversy-riddled organisation in doubt. The revelations were backed up by comments from the body’s finance committee chair, Fouzi Lekjaa, who said that CAF had entered a “cycle of structural deficit that will reach about $6 million” at the end of the year.
“If this deficit is not corrected, it will lead to the consumption of financial reserves and the deficit will get to the point of reaching $120 million after 10 years,” the minutes quoted Lekjaa as saying.
These comments were interpreted by experts in financial matters as saying that CAF was broke.
CAF and its president, Ahmad Ahmad, have been in the spotlight over governance issues, which led to the organisation to be placed under Fifa administration.
Fifa general secretary Fatma Samoura has been tasked with overseeing the reforms within African football’s governing body, while also conducting an audit of CAF’s financial affairs.
Attempts to get comments from CAF were unsuccessful. The organisation had not responded to an email sent to its media department by the time of going to press.
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