Transformation is almost always one of the key initiatives that any aspiring leader has on their agenda. Any leader that seeks to take over from another ordinarily does so because they do not believe that the incumbent is capable of either seeing the transformational requirements, or to drive initiatives that will fulfil the need to transform.
Governance
- Constitutional Supremacy: We need to move the leadership of SAFA from the grips of individuals and personality cults to Constitutional Supremacy. This way, all chaos and innuendos are removed, stakeholders understand their roles, and leadership accounts appropriately.
- Constitutional Committees Alignment: Constitutional structure must serve the purpose for which they were established. The Terms of Reference and Operational Manual for each committee to be established, implemented, and monitored.
- Ethical Leadership and Operations: Gone should be the days where leadership tweaks operations to suit individuals at the expense of the Constitution and Membership. Ethical Leadership will be precedence and the Ethics committee will be independent to a point that even the President will submit thereto is there are matters to answer for.
- Disciplinary Code: Disciplinary processes within the organisation is not to be used as a substitute of leadership or management. These are also not to be used as a score settling instrument either. However, through Constitutional Supremacy and a good measure of educational and corrective actions, discipline must be always instilled within the organisation, and promptly.
Leadership Optimisation
- Right Sizing: Bloated leadership structures remove the value from the original intent. Structures must be able to serve the purpose that they were established, and as such they must be correctly sized and capacitated.
- Leadership Development: People get elected because of their demonstrated abilities, knowledge, skills, and capabilities. However, as relevant as these may be, this does not mean that they are already adequately skilled for their new portfolios. Each portfolio will have a set of key results areas, the bases upon which all leaders shall be continually developed.
- Strategic Thrust: All leaders must enable the achievement of the organisational strategy. This includes leadership in the enabling of access to football to all communities, development, and promotion of talent, reaching unprecedented levels of participation and recognition continentally and globally, and improving our rankings in all participation.
Club Licensing
- Life blood: Football Clubs right to the lower levels of participation are the life blood of the organisation nationally. Establishing an association Football Club must eventually be a sacramental act. It adds life to the life of our football. Such establishment must be given the status that they deserve and encouraged to keep afloat.
- Association Football: Participating in association football cannot never be the same as participating in gambling or social football. Therefore, with club licensing, association Football Clubs will be driven to have the right ingredients of a football club. Some of these ingredients are registration as NPO / NPC, PBO, SAFA Based Licensing, and to meet the minimum club operational requirements like club-player-parent engagement model, transparent governance model, sustainable club funding model.
- Public / Private Support: Through Club Licensing, SAFA must enable a solid support system for the licensed clubs from both public and private section. SAFA must be able to maintain information on Good Standing statuses, movement, and history of clubs nationally.
- Club Participation: A channel for licensed clubs to participate in the decision making of the association must be created.
Financial Stability
- Increase Funding: Funding for public organisations such as SAFA come and go. They come because SAFA owns a valuable product – Football. But they also go because value does not get created for both the organisation and funders. A lot must be done to not only create value for both SAFA and the funder, but to sustain that value and make be visible. It takes great leadership to achieve that.
- General Income: SAFA cannot only depend on fees, grants, and funding. It needs to create its own sustainable streams of income. Creativity around Products and Services around the football products must be conceptualised and eventual taken to market. Certainty on income helps in ensuring that funding of football development drills down right to the Local Football Associations.
