Posted in News on Nov 03, 2001.
The BoG effectively runs professional soccer.
Motaung said there was lack of direction and no proper planning in Safa . Too much power was concentrated in the hands of a few individuals.
In a wide-ranging interview, the Chiefs boss spoke for the first time about the recently held Safa elections, which ushered back almost the entire old executive. He said while the elections were conducted democratically, "democracy has its own intricacies and manipulation is rife".
"Obviously, I was not on the president's list," he said in reference to a document leaked to City Press a few days before the elections, listing Safa president Molefi Oliphant's shadow cabinet.
Motaung said he was happy to be excluded from the PSL's representatives in Safa, despite calls by Jomo Sono to be part of the trio, consisting of Sono, Nastacia Tsichlas and newcomer Mato Madlala.
But Motaung said he had no regrets about having being excluded.
"I was getting frustrated sitting in there to rubber-stamp decisions whose deliberations I had not been part of. I was going to resign from my Safa position anyway because I could better use my time for club matters."
He said his previous inclusion in Safa smacked of tokenism. "I am nobody's token and will never be one," said Motaung.
He alleges the supposedly representative executive committee by and large rubber-stamps decisions imposed on them by the emergency committee. Safa, he said, consisted of too many lackeys and had little room for independent thinkers.
"To survive there you must just be part of the flow. I am not a token and could not live with that."
He also complained that the "emergency committee" had sweeping powers,
making other sub-committees ineffective.
The emergency committee comprises Oliphant, vice-president Irvin Khoza and
chief executive officer Danny Jordaan.
His unhappiness also extends to the BoG. Motaung has stopped attending BoG
meetings, calling them "a total waste of time". He called for the BoG to be
removed from the day-to-day activities of the league to help address the
turmoil in professional football .
Motaung said the current crisis in the PSL was the creation of the BoG. "We
have a CEO who is not empowered and he is overlooked by a BoG that is
accountable to no one but itself. We are in effect running the league, so
what's the job of the CEO?" mused Motaung.
He said he was happy amendments to the PSL constitution have already been
made to pave the way for the reintroduction of a management committee to run
the league.
He said if the management committee had been instituted by now, "we would
have had our AGM (annual general meeting) in time and avoided the
embarrassment we found ourselves in recently".
Advocate Dave Beasley found the PSL to be unconstitutional after failing to
hold an AGM over the past three years.
Motaung said preparations for the forthcoming African Cup of Nations lacked
direction. "Even an outsider can see the confusion going on there. There is
no direction, consistency and proper planning. Planning does not start
shortly before an event," he said .
Motaung also attacked the head of the referees' department, Professor Lesole
Gadinabokao. "Referees are not up to scratch and it was good of Safa to come
out openly that a referee had made a crucial error in a match.
Professor Gadinabokao is sitting on an explosive report about the chaos in
the referees' department and we would like him to release it. The president
must see to it that the report, which has been under wraps for more than a
year, becomes public knowledge."
It was painful and demoralising to work hard, only to be denied your dues because of incompetent and corrupt match officials.
"For two seasons Chiefs have been denied the championship because of
referees and this is something Safa is well aware of," Motaung said.
