The South African Football Association (SAFA) is taking the allegations of match-fixing, bribery and corruption in the Glad Africa Championship very seriously and they will be meeting the South African Police Service (SAPS) this afternoon to take this further.
Teams from different provinces in the First Division in the past few months have stormed social media complaining about not only the standard of match officiating but alleging that there’s a syndicate that is working on benefiting certain teams to get promotion to the Premier Division come end of the season.
SAFA Acting CEO Gay Mokoena says they are meeting SAPS this afternoon also as part of a response to the incidents that took place in the game between TS Galaxy and Real Kings this past weekend.
There have also been serious allegations levelled against a senior SAFA NEC official and this reported syndicate which is accused of pushing certain teams for promotion in the First Division. Mokoena says this is also one of the reasons which are leading them to take this matter to the police.
It’s not the first time there have been allegations of this nature in local football especially relating to the Glad Africa Championship.
Towards the end of last season, there were a lot of allegations levelled against Royal Eagles who were said to be benefitting through awarding on disputable penalties as they were chasing promotion but ended up losing in the promotional play-offs.
SAFA President Danny Jordaan says this is no longer a football matter but a criminal matter, he says they will also be roping in CAF and FIFA to help them get to the bottom of this.
One of the challenges most clubs have in the First Division is that with most of their games are not being televised and not having adequate cameras at the stadium, there’s also been a number of disputable off-side decisions that most of the time that lead to goals.
It’s alleged that this is another way that is used by the suspected syndicate to get their desired results.
Jordaan says they’ll also be meeting the PSL over these allegations soon.
But it’s also the allegation that a high ranking SAFA official and NEC member is being linked to this reported syndicate.
Jordaan says there’s no need to have a SAFA investigation to this matter once they’ve reported it to the police this afternoon. – Report by Velile Mnyandu
