South African football body is broke: claim

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-01-22 18:00

JOHANNESBURG: The South African Football Association (SAFA) is struggling with cash flow problems, the Mail & Guardian newspaper in Johannesburg reported on Friday.

South Africa hosts the FIFA World Cup in June.

The weekly newspaper said it had access to SAFA's bank accounts which showed a negative balance of more than 7.4 million rands ($one million).

It said other SAFA documents showed that it also owed suppliers another 7 million rands.

A senior SAFA official, who was not named in the report, said the situation was even bleaker than that.

"We are close to 10 million rands ($1.35 million) in the red, excluding what we need to pay our suppliers," he said.

"It's becoming increasingly difficult to run the sport smoothly in the country. The majority of our regions have not received their grants, which has paralyzed the game in these affected areas."

A letter written by the SAFA Waterberg region which was leaked to the newspaper said the region was facing eviction from its office, had not paid its phone bills and owed staff members their salaries.

But former SAFA chief executive Raymond Hack told the weekly paper that allegations of financial problems were "absolute nonsense".

"The SABC alone owes SAFA almost 27 million rands ($3.6 million )," said Hack, who resigned from his position early in January.

"I am reliably informed that the SABC will pay... this week which should sort out any financial problems," said Hack, who reported a 32 million rands ($4.32 million) profit for SAFA last September.

SAFA's vice-president for finance, Mandla Mazibuko, said that Hack left SAFA's account in a deficit but would not give any figure.

"It's really too early for me to comment because I'm still going through the books," said Mazibuko.