Differing views emerge from SAFA regions on plan to reduce oversized NEC

The SAFA NEC is said to be the biggest in the world, compared to other countries on the continent with fewer than 20 members, and mostly fewer than 15. 

There was a turnaround strategy document that was proposed last year to reduce the NEC to 21 due to the rising costs, but Football Transformation Forum Chairperson Tankiso Modipa says this is not feasible for the South African football terrain...

"It is going to be practically impossible to reduce the NEC. If you go to each and every region now you'll have two provincial reps and they struggle to get to each and every corner in that province."

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In 2013, FIFA had recommended that SAFA trim down its oversized NEC to just 18 members, but it was instead expanded from 26 members to 47, years later. 

With the NEC holding regular meetings throughout the year, an oversized NEC has been blamed in the past for placing a massive strain on SAFA’s limited resources. SAFA Jose Gqabi, regional president, and Sello Ntsoelinyane, who is a member of the Save Our SAFA (SOS) lobby group behind Sandile Zungu’s presidential campaign, says the oversized NEC concerns them.

Another argument has always been that paying 47 members honorariums becomes too much for SAFA. In the past, the honorariums have increased from R2.5 million to R6.1 million, and those opposed say this eats into the operational budget and resources for football development and running of national teams. However, Modipa continued to argue that a reduced NEC won’t work for a vast country like SA...

Modipa is also the President of the SAFA Overberg region.

With the Premier Soccer League (PSL) as a special member of SAFA, the proposed turnaround strategy was presented by the financial committee led by Mxolisi Sibam last year to increase their voice in the NEC with the hope that this would also see their financial contribution to SAFA increasing under the new NEC of 21 members. Modipa says as SAFA, they are not a profit-making entity like the PSL, who are their professional wing...

"SAFA is a non-profit organisation, if we are allowed to make money then we are going to make money, it's not that people who are in SAFA don't know how to make money. The documents and the set up in SAFA does not allow for us to be a profit making organisation. SAFA and PSL are not equal, that is the professional wing of South African football and this is the development side."

When the turnaround proposal was presented last year, it was said to be following modern practices from other FAs around the continent, like Morocco, Egypt, and around the world.