We Condemn SLAPP Tactics. We Support an Open Discourse.

Please read this article:

Petition update · SAFA and Danny Jordaan – An open letter to your threat of legal action · Change.org

As The Solly4President Movement, we are not too much on the issue of the $10m scandal as we do not have much info on that.

However, we are against SLAPP tactics to stifle discourse on things that hold public interest. Moreover, we condemn the use of SAFA resources that would be used to develop and promote sports to defend personal egos.

Therefore, we support an open discourse trail Bart Henderson is leading to flush out the details of what happened with the $10m. Could you let this be an open dialogue? Let the nation be taken into confidence, or let the truth be exposed kicking and screaming.

Where does that come from?

Bart Henderson wrote about the possible fraud with the supposed donation to the diaspora as part of the World Cup 2010 on his LinkedIn profile. In response to this, SAFA allows itself to be used by its President by responding, trying to dress down Bart, and threatening him with a lawsuit. That is a SLAPP (SLAPPs are Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation).

Strategic lawsuits against public participation, or litigation against public participation, are intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.

SAFA is an institution that governs a public sport, and as such it belongs to the people. The people need to be given reports and updates about things that concern or affect them. To an ordinary South African, the performance of football compared to the past and compare to other nations is a cause for concern. If SAFA is responsible for the development of the very football, it, therefore, becomes important to the nation as to where and why was R10m (almost R190m Nett Present Value) was donated whilst it could have made a dent in the development of the game. So when people raise issues of such nature, SLAPP should never be a response, let alone the dressing down of those who raise the issues.

The above is what SAFA did. See this link. We ask ourselves if SAFA feels that its organizational image was being tainted, was SLAPP the best response? We can bet that more than half of the people in SAFA who were part of this response do not know the matter at hand. If that is the case, why you they then SLAPP on something they have no knowledge of? Or could this be that the President is inspiring their thinking and then supporting everything that he says? If that were to be the case, can we be confident as football stakeholders that indeed we have leadership? Do we have a council? Great minds at the highest level?

We urge SAFA to play its fiduciary role well. SAFA is NOT an enemy of the people, it is in fact a vehicle of the people. It needs to take the shape and form of being responsive to the people. It needs to use its governance hat to ensure that all that needs to be answered for, is indeed answered for. It must desist from trying to shut people up but rather instill confidence in the people, showing that ultimately it is one with the people.

We urge the SAFA President to rather take an approach of taking the country and football stakeholders to confidence on the matters relating to the $10m, or at least openly support that there be probes on the matter if such was not conclusive in the past.

Let’s all love football, our nation, and its people.