SAFA election fraud allegations put pressure on SASCOC before September vote

25 August 2026

South African football’s governing body has been urged to intervene after allegations of irregularities in the SAFA regional elections were raised in Parliament ahead of next month’s presidential vote.

SAFA Vice-President Bennet Bailey claims the process in the Sarah Baartman region of the Eastern Cape was compromised when two SAFA National Executive Committee members arrived with auditors’ vetting forms and election results, despite the auditors not being present at the congress.

Bailey alleges that the documents excluded candidates who do not support SAFA President Danny Jordaan’s bid for re-election.

“The elections were supposed to take place on Saturday, but SAFA via our CEO deployed two people who are not part of the membership committee. These nominations were sent to the audit firm, but mysteriously the audit firm said on Saturday that they are not available to attend. The delegates who were in attendance submitted their proof that the document produced by the auditing firm is wrong. Mzimkhulu Fina and Chris Tyhawana argued that it should be accepted and that the elections will be conducted according to that document, but the LFA stood their ground.”

The two NEC members named by Bailey, Mzimkhulu Fina and Chris Tyhawana, are aligned with the Football Transformation Forum (FTF).

The elections in Sarah Baartman had been scheduled for Saturday, but were disputed after delegates challenged the authenticity of the vetting documents. Bailey says the auditors have since disowned the forms, and that a case has been opened with the police.

Sarah Baartman is one of eight SAFA regions in the Eastern Cape. KwaZulu-Natal is the province with the most regions, with 11.

Bailey is a member of the Save Our SAFA (SOS) lobby group, which is supporting the presidential campaign of AmaZulu owner Sandile Zungu.

The dispute comes after Lebogang Riet, chairperson of Save Our SAFA, told SABC Sport that the group believed regional elections were being “stolen”. Riet said letters had been sent to the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC), CAF and FIFA asking them to intervene, but that no response had been received.

Bailey repeated those concerns and said he did not believe the upcoming SAFA elections would be free and fair.

Marlon Daniels, a member of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee and a representative of the Patriotic Alliance, stopped short of making the same conclusion. However, he questioned why SASCOC had not replied to correspondence from Save Our SAFA and raised concerns about whether the organisation was acting impartially.

“This is not healthy and I want to know what role SACOC is going to play because I’m disturbed, but not surprised that SASCOC did not respond to communication sent to them. If memory serves me well, we had the same challenges the last time we had another federation here and SACOC were dragging their feet. I see the same movie playing out and I see SACOC doing what they usually do, which is not standing up and being firm. The upcoming SAFA elections is a mess and it may not be fair, and if that’s the case it will be hijacked.”

The SAFA presidential election is due to take place on 12 September 2026, leaving three weeks before the vote. SAFA’s Governance Committee is expected to publish the list of candidates eligible to contest the election on Friday.

At the SAFA Congress, voting delegations will be sent by all 52 SAFA regions and the 11 association members. The National Soccer League (NSL), which is a special member, will also send a delegation.