The former SAFA Vice-President, Gladwyn White, penned a letter to most football leaders in the country on March 2, 2024, entitled “Unethical Conduct”. The contents of the letter are here-below (no editing).
START
An extreme sad situation at our beloved Football Headquarters.
Our manmade problems are catastrophically as deep as the Oppenheimer’s legacy formulated in the form of “Die Grootgat” in Kimberley.
May I also copy from the President of Cape Town FA to regrettably bring the bleak picture under your attention as members of our Federation.
The NEC, elected by the SAFA Congress has abandoned its fiduciary responsibilities of alienating wrong from right, agreeing to factual and ethical debates intended to put our organization on an ethical pedestal and a beacon of hope to all our peers and stakeholders around the globe.
But instead, much of the NEC, who are confusing themselves as serving at the behest of our President, are voting without comprehension for immoral and unethical positions. Anyone with a contrasting and progressive view is incorrectly accused of working with the enemy.
It is sad to observe that in the midst of a looming 4th term, our President has lost the ethical and moral compass to steer the sinking ship out of this unprecedented mess. The Audit and Risk Committee has rightfully flagged both our President and CFO as high-risk candidates which are not good for the BRAND SAFA and has ever since sent a ‘SOS’ to the NEC to attend to this matter – (a recommendation that has been kept far away from the Board).
Finally, the CEO, as the Accounting Officer on operational matters, has rightfully procured a replacement Security Service Provider at the end of the 3 months’ probation period allocated by the last NEC meeting of December 9, 2023, until all (correct) procurement processes are exhausted, I guess.
However, after a heated fallout between our CEO and our President around the onsite Security Company brought against his consent, the President countered the move by hastily convening an Emergency Committee meeting for 3pm Saturday. It is apparent that the notice wasn’t issued by the CEO but the PA of the President.
Notwithstanding that “Security” is an item on the forthcoming NEC which was incorrectly rescheduled for the 16th March 2024 from the 9th March 2024, the Finance & Procurement Committee has apparently prepared a detailed Report with Recommendations to the NEC after their in-depth site investigation. The President unilaterally rejected the report and threatened to refer all the ‘White-submissions’ to the Ethics Committee.
The Emergency Committee was nowhere to be found during the festive when serious findings reached the tables of both the CEO and President around Fortico. Instead, the President convened illegal meetings of the elites to bully the CEO to sign off the contract. It is on record that the President regularly called the CEO bullying her to sign the 24 months contract against the 3 months’ probation resolution of the NEC as early as the Sunday morning of the 10th of
December. Bullying by its nature should be a serious offence and bullying a woman for any sort should be condemned irrespective of the culprit. In the back of our mind, we must always be reminded on how our former CEO was reduced to a glorified clerk (as stated in his letter of resignation), a conduct he refused to continue suffocating under.
Poor Mr Tankiso Modipa was used and disposed in the deep side of the ocean and left there to drown.
We must never forget that our Vision 2022 strategy explicitly stated it clearly how we aspire to be a world class administration – an intention we are far apart from.
We cannot be naïve on the realities of what this ‘SECURITY’ subject has caused SAFA on its investments as we have lost our institutional memory in the constructive dismissal of our former CEO. It is historically archived in the Genius-World-Book-of-Records how SAFA, the first and only organization globally has replaced its Chief Executive Officer within 24 hours ignoring its own set of Human Resource Policies & Procedures.
If you interview any of the Provincial Chairpersons present in that Emco meeting, they’ll confirm that they have never resolved on such a resolution. Very strange!
The President must tell the Regions on how he spent the R22,000,000 borrowed from FIFA, approved by the former NEC to settle all outstanding Regional Grants, Clubs’ travelling subsidies and Competitions’ prize money.
SAFA is no longer a great institution ushering international regard in the sporting industry as we are borrowing money from institutions that aren’t accredited by the NCR to lend out money. Those entities are grossly referred to as Zama-Zamas or Loan Sharks – that’s where our beloved organization is shifted towards without the knowledge of the NEC except for the elitists.
The President must tell the Regions what happened to the last tranches of over R22,000,000 from the Legacy Trust as a final transfer to SAFA to purchase 52 Isuzu Bakkies as resolved by the NEC.
Like the Banyana Banyana bonus agreements and settlements were unilaterally processed outside the NEC by the President, the same fete is unfolding in front of the NEC with Bafana Bafana. Like the Regions, the NEC members are deprived of such information except for the elitists.
The President must tell the Regions why he leaves the country for more than a month without appointing an Acting President. It is extremely embarrassing for the national leaders to observe not once but repeatedly so on how the President arrive in the same aircraft with the national teams, hurriedly leaving the entourage downstairs to sort their luggage, only for him to form part of the que welcoming the same entourage he arrived with.
Illegal postponement of meetings is now out of control at our Headquarters, and it leaves a bitter aftertaste to all stakeholders. May I remind you how wrongfully both back-to-back Congresses were postponed by dropping the good name of the President of CAF who to date is still to visit our HQ.
Two recent NEC meetings been postponed for allowing the President to attend a funeral and to allow the PSL to attend their first ever meeting since the last Congress on June 26, 2022. It must be raised that we don’t have PSL members in the SAFA NEC but have a Vice President and several NEC members (from the PSL) elected/announced in a biennial Congress.
The abuse of Ms Emma Hendricks as a SAFA NEC member is continued without any impunity. How can a seating President appoint his Vice President to deal with the Regional Presidency of Ms Hendricks who is the first ever women President produced in the history of SAFA Regions. This is gross misconduct of the highest order coming from the SAFA President primarily intending to sow divisions in the Northern Cape.
In the March 2022 Congress, the delegates unanimously resolved to suspend the President of Tshwane FA, but the President as mandated by the Statutes failed to ensure that the suspension is effected as we saw Mr Molhabeng’s name featuring on the national ballot just a month later or so. On the buildup to the Congress elections, we heard of a NEC member, in his capacity as Vice Chair of Membership deployed to the Tshwane FA Congress to monitor proceedings on behalf of SAFA. It was embarrassing for the NEC to get a report from the representative reporting that Mr Mohlabeng retained his presidency unopposed.
Fast-forward to September 2022, the same leader without any reprimanding, was instead promoted to head SAFA Competitions ignoring the historical allegations of him being in the centre of match manipulations in KZN province. Who can forget how he impersonated a Judge to issue that fake Court Order to deprive a legitimate club of well-deserved progress.
Last year, the same incumbent, in his capacity as Chairperson of KZN FA, wrote a letter to himself as Chairperson of SAFA Competitions to put a moratorium on relegating any of the 2 culprits at their ABC Motsepe League and to increase the teams to 20. The incumbent bulldozed the letter across his committee members for voting and subsequently in a relay manner rushed back to his provincial structure to falsely report that the NEC approved his application. In the midst of everything, the Chairperson of Competitions in KZN resigned with immediate effect for the abuse of power and fiddling on domestic territory.
In the last season’s ABC Motsepe Play-offs, we received notification from the Office of the CEO informing clubs that the venue would have been Durban. But shockingly the festivities were diverted to Maritzburg without notifying the Competitions Committee, the KZN FA and the NEC. In spite of those festivities been wrapped up with barbaric gunshots causing a state of pandemonium and uncertainty, the matters never even made the NEC Agenda.
Lastly, the current Statutes at our disposal are not the Statutes approved by the Congress of March 2022 as we were informed that the wrong copy of Statutes was signed by the President. The President refused to explain where he got the wrong copy from as there was only one copy considered by the Congress.
As we customize and aligned ourselves with both FIFA and CAF legislation, serious regulations disqualifying the President were deliberately ignored such as presidential term limits and presidential age limits hence we must brace ourselves for the fourth term.
Amongst the elitists utilized to drown SAFA are the Chairpersons of Limpopo, Western Cape, KZN, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, the Presidency (except the longest serving VP) and the Chair of Finance & Procurement.
I have previously made a submission to the Ethics Committee raising the governance deficiencies in our beloved organization but strangely, the Integrity Officer, who is an honorary member of Cape Town FA, accused me of working with the Ms Ria Ledwaba cabal to oust the SAFA President and as a result, recommended for my dismissal to the Ethics Committee. It is for these reasons that I request a revolution from the SAFA members to either resolve instituting a Commission of Inquiry, like the Pickard Commission and/or an independent forensic audit and/or to refer to the FIFA Ethics Committee to get to the bottom of these allegations.
The culprits are hiding behind the false narrative that my reaction is expressed by the bitterness of being snubbed as a Vice President ignoring the fact that I have vocal against wrong and unethical conduct pre, during and post my short stint at the helm of those responsibilities.
SAFA really deserves better and failure to nip this anomaly in the bud will tarnish the brand further as we are about to lose another CEO. The high turnover of CEOs and Vice Presidents are a worrying case study.
You will inherit a dead structure with no political and administrative ethics if we don’t arrest the
anomaly now!
Yours in Football Development
Gladwyn White
SAFA NEC member
(0713019308)
2nd March 2024
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