FIFA President Gianni Infantino and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) counterpart Dr President Patrice Motsepe called Dr Danny Jordaan to congratulate him after his re-election as South African Football Association (SAFA) President on Saturday afternoon.
The SAFA Elective Congress was held under the watchful eye of world football governing body FIFA, CAF, COSAFA and SASCO, and it was a huge success. Various other stakeholders were in attendance, including the Premier Soccer League and legends of the game, among others.
Infantino and Dr Motsepe also congratulated the incoming leaders after several members of the Executive were also elected during the Congress. Dr Jordaan received 157 votes to comfortably win the elective race held in Midrand, Johannesburg. Challenger Sandile Zungu received 82 votes.
Dr Jordaan said a lot has been achieved in the last four years and the new Executive will work even harder to implement Vision 2030.
“As far as referees are concerned, you know that when we started, you did not have a single woman referee refereeing women’s football. Now every single women’s football match is refereed by a woman to the extent that for the first time also, you have a woman refereeing matches in our highest professional league, the PSL,” the SAFA President said.
“And so you find South African women going to the World Cup, going to AFCON or WAFCON, and officiating at that level. So I want to not go on and on, but stop to say, I hope you have some idea of the last four years that this executive has worked and produced good results now that our women’s team, Banyan Banyana, is ranked number two on the African continent.
“Bafana Bafana are number 10 on the continent, our under-20s are the African champions and our under-17s played in Qatar in the World Cup. This must be seen and not be dismissed as if there’s no development in South African football.”
The newly elected leadership will now immediately turn their attention to several pressing matters, including the CAF Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations | COSAFA Qualifier in Mozambique this month, Bafana Bafana’s 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers against Guinea and Eritrea, the SA Under 23s, South Africa’s participation in the inaugural FIFA U15 World Cup in Azerbaijan, the FIFAe World Cup, Coaching Education and the Hollywoodbets Super League, among many others.
