The South African Football Association (SAFA) is set to post a loss of R74 million at its general meeting on Sunday. This was confirmed on Thursday by SAFA Acting CEO Gay Mokoena during a press conference at SAFA House.
The loss is for the financial year ending 30th June 2019. SAFA’s financial woes have been well documented for the past 18 months in particular and Mokoena says the challenges around the broadcast rights, where they didn’t have an income for the past financial year affected them greatly.
At last year’s AGM, SAFA reported a loss of R15,8 million and they announced that they were going to take some cost-cutting measures to ensure a successful turnaround strategy.
Mokoena, who came in last month, to replace another Acting CEO Russell Paul who has joined FIFA, says they managed to cut their annual expenditure by R80 million.
SAFA is now drawing up a financial, recovery plan following the signing of its contract with the SABC which is reported to be around R50 million plus value in kind annually.
Mokoena expects a lot of improvement in the current financial year from broadcasting rights and also money to be made from the centralisation of the CAF and FIFA World Cup rights as well.
Mokoena also says there’s a couple of deals that have been renewed including Castle Lager’s Bafana Bafana sponsorship.
He also reveals that there’s a new kit sponsorship deal on the cards and there are four companies they’re negotiating with, including the current suppliers Nike.
For a very long time, Sasol have been pulling alone as Banyana Banyana sponsors but according to Mokoena that’s soon going to be a thing of the past.
He has also confirmed that the venue for the Nelson Mandela Challenge for the next three years has been secured with Port Elizabeth believed to be the candidate city.
In August SAFA launched the national women’s league and with the assistance of the SABC, the league is broadcast live on national television every weekend.
Mokoena says this is attracting some interest from potential sponsors. – Report by Velile Mnyandu
