The SA Football Association (Safa) on Friday said there were no issues with Nelson Mandela Bay executive mayor Danny Jordaan travelling overseas.
Safa spokesperson Dominic Chimhavi was responding to questions around Jordaan ditching plans to attend the Fifa presidential election in Zurich, Switzerland, taking place on Friday, amid continued bribery allegations which rocked football’s world governing body last year.
Last year, two as yet unnamed South African officials were implicated in an FBI indictment relating to the alleged payment of 10 million dollars in exchange for votes to secure South Africa the 2010 World Cup.
Chimhavi told the African News Agency that since Jordaan was not an an executive president of Safa he was entitled to delegate duties.
“He has a full-time job as a mayor and has tight schedules in Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, there are a lot of bread and butter issues he has to be attending to. He has sent the CEO and an executive member to Zurich. He [Jordaan] was suppose to go up until he had to attend to issues in the metro,” said Chimhavi.
“In the past few weeks he was in Europe for CAF [Confederation of African Football] executive meetings, so there is no issue of him travelling overseas.”
Earlier, the Democratic Alliance in the Eastern Cape had raised questions as to why Jordaan chose to remain in South Africa for a council sitting on Thursday with only one item on the agenda, namely the Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS).
In a statement, the DA said there would have been enough time for Jordaan to attend both commitments.
“Danny Jordaan has been plagued by the scandal of the FIFA $10 million bribe, and his split priorities between SAFA and Nelson Mandela Bay. Ever since the FBI indictment in the bribe scandal came out, Jordaan a previously frequent and avid traveller, appears to have chosen to remain safely in South Africa.”
According to the FBI indictment document, “two high-ranking South African football and government officials” were responsible for offering cash for votes.
It further noted that “at various times relevant to the indictment, co-conspirator #15 and #16 were high ranking officials of both the 2006 South Africa World Cup bid committee and the 2010 South Africa World Cup bid and local organising committees”.
The DA alleged that only Danny Jordaan, Tokyo Sexwale and Irvin Khoza met all these parameters.
“Tokyo Sexwale is currently in Zurich as he plans to contest the Presidential Election and it seems that he hasn’t run into any legal issues since departing South Africa. Why Danny Jordaan declined to travel to Europe this week raises more questions than answers in the ongoing FIFA bribe scandal and FBI investigation.”
– African News Agency (ANA)
