Jordaan, Khoza make peace after minister intervenes in Safa, PSL spat

Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa brought two warring football bosses together on Tuesday to try to foster a working relationship between Safa and the Premier Soccer League (PSL).

Mthethwa tweeted late on Tuesday afternoon that he had called Safa president Danny Jordaan and PSL chairperson Irvin Khoza to a meeting.

This followed last week’s apparent snub by Khoza to Jordaan. The two were supposed to meet but, according to Jordaan, Khoza cancelled at the 11th hour.

Mthethwa said in a tweet that he had called the two together “to resolve outstanding issues that have been of great importance recently”.

“I sought a commitment from them to work cohesively in unison and I’m pleased that they have committed to addressing matters together before reaching out to the government and other stakeholders. Furthermore, they reiterated their resolve to fight the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.”

The two organisations were at loggerheads over the suspension of the league fixtures because of pandemic.

The PSL opted to postpone matches temporarily; Safa insisted that no matches should be played and even threatened to withdraw match officials.

It is not the first time that the two bodies have had issues. There is still the OUTsurance matter which is before the arbitrator at the moment.

Read: Referee kit sponsor saga rumbles on

Since Safa announced a five-year match official sponsorship deal with OUTsurance worth R50 million last year, the bodies have been at loggerheads. The PSL argued that the partnership was in conflict with the rights of Nedbank and Absa – both banks sponsor the league – a claim Safa labelled as “absurd and nonsensical”.

The two organisations have agreed to bypass the appeal process and head straight for arbitration in an effort to speed up the process. But the problem was that the preferred arbitrator was busy with the state capture commission and it was difficult to pin him down to hear the matter.

In the meantime, they had agreed that, until the matter is settled, match officials would not wear OUTsurance kits.

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