Former SA Football Association CEO Leslie Sedibe (SAFA CEO) was on 14 March among those banned by FIFA from all football-related activities .Picture: DUIF DU TOIT
Former Safa officials maintain innocence in 2010 scandal
THREE more former SA Football Association (Safa) officials have been banned in relation to friendlies played by the national side in 2010, soccer’s governing body Fifa said yesterday.
Leslie Sedibe, a former Safa chief executive, was suspended for five years and fined R311 000 by Fifa’s ethics committee.
Former heads of Safa’s refereeing department Steve Goddard and Adeel Carelse were banned for two years, Fifa said.
The cases were linked to that of former Safa executive member and head of referees Lindile Kika, who was suspended for six years in October.
Fifa said Sedibe, Goddard and Carelse had infringed ethics regulations concerning general rules of conduct, loyalty, disclosure, cooperation and reporting.
Investigations were conducted by the ethics committee along with the security division, which is responsible for fighting match fixing.
A previous Fifa investigation had looked into warm-up matches that South Africa played against Thailand, Bulgaria, Colombia and Guatemala in May 2010 ahead of the World Cup, which the country hosted.
A stunned Goddard tained his innocence.
Asked if he was going to appeal against the ban‚ he said he did not have the money to do so.
“I’m not prepared to incur costs. I did nothing wrong‚ full
mainstop‚” he said. Sedibe also denied any wrongdoing, saying he had not met convicted Singapore-based match- fixer Wilson Perumal at Safa’s headquarters to discuss match officials.
“You’ve all been told lies that I met Wilson Perumal at Safa’s house,” he said.
“I put out a challenge to Fifa to inspect my financial records . . . for purposes of establishing whether I have received questionable payments.
“Neither Safa nor Fifa has responded to this offer.”
Sedibe alleged that Fifa and Safa were not interested in the truth and wanted to find a scapegoat in the match-fixing scandal.
“Since 2012, in an effort to prepare for the commission of inquiry, my repeated requests for access to certain information have been ignored by Safa,” he told reporters.
He said he had always been open to an investigation.
“I was investigated and the National Prosecuting Authority took a view that there was no evidence of match-fixing on my part.”
Sedibe said he refused to cooperate with Fifa’s investigation because they had asked him for documents that Safa would not give him access to.
“In desperation, I filed an application in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act requesting the provisional report by Fifa after its investigation on match-fixing in 2010
“To date, despite the application that I filed with Safa that was addressed to [Safa president] Dr Danny Jordaan, I haven’t been given access,” Sedibe said.
“In my view, the Fifa investigation remains incomplete and unreliable for as long as these documents are not included in the investigation.”
He had not been given a fair opportunity to present his version of events, he said.
Attempts to obtain comment from Safa president Jordaan proved fruitless last night. –Additional reporting by Tiyani Mabasa and TMG Digital
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