SOS takes aim at SAFA electoral process, explores court action and alleges electoral bias and ‘stealing’ of regions

The SOS, who also call themselves the Forces of Change, released a media statement this week, raising serious concerns about the independence and impartiality of individuals deployed by SAFA to oversee electoral processes at regional and Local football Associations (LFAs) congresses. The Chairperson of Forces For Change, Lebogang Riet, says they have written letters to CAF, FIFA and SASCOC and no one is listening to them.

"We are reaching a state where all these other matters must just be sent to court because no other body is trying to listen to us. If you go back to the letters that were written to SASCOC and letters that were written to DSEC, FIFA and CAF, nobody is listening," said Riet

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"So we have no other recourse to start taking these matters to court because our people have been victimised left, right and center."

"Regions have been stolen, if I must put it like that. That is why you will realise that not everybody will be in a position to stand up and say, look here, I'm not supporting this. Because they know that through the office of the CEO, there will be attacks."

Riet, who is also a SAFA National Executive Committee (NEC) member, goes further to accuse some of his colleagues, who are on the FTF side and are members of the Membership Committee, namely Tankiso Modipa, Kwenza Ngwenya and Andile Ngconjana, of being deployed as electoral officers, when they are also leaders and members of the FTF. The FTF, is a lobby group that is behind SAFA President Danny Jordaan’s bid for a fourth term. Riet alleges that the regions are being stolen with the full knowledge of the SAFA CEO, Lydia Monyepao.

According to SOS, these electoral officers cannot be seen as independent and impartial when they have an interest in the outcome of elections that they are also administering. Riet says under Monyepao, the rules of the electoral processes are not being applied consistently and fairly. He further alleges that the FTF is using SAFA’s money for its campaign.

SABC Sport reached out to SAFA for a right of reply on these allegations made by SOS about the CEO and the electoral processes last week and they have not responded. 

In their statement, Riet is counting five regions in four provinces, where he’s alleging that they are being stolen and forced to have election re-runs because they are not supporting FTF candidates. He says the Nelson Mandela Bay region is also critical because it’s the region that’s supposed to nominate Jordaan for the presidential position, as he comes from there.

Riet, the Chairperson of SAFA Northern Cape, goes further to allege that in KwaZulu-Natal, this past weekend, the Amajuba region was going to be forced to re-run their elections for the third time, with the Newcastle LFA set for the elections again. He says this was all done to win the Amajuba region for the incumbent.

Previously, SABC Sport has posed some of these questions to Ngconjana about the allegations coming from the SOS, and he dismissed them as propaganda that was peddled by some people and regions who are disgruntled.