The South African Football Association are set to engage the public broadcaster, the SABC to sign a contract extension as their current deal ends in October, iDiski Times has learnt.
The football association, which has had its love-hate relationship in the past, due to many differences over financial agreements, will enter those showdown talks in the coming days.
The SABC, when they enter a broadcasting rights agreement with the SAFA, will look to cover all Bafana home matches, ABC Motsepe League National Play-offs, Banyana Banyana and Hollywood Bets Super League, SASOL League Women’s National Play-offs Final and SAB National Championship final.
This is despite SAFA in the past saying what the SABC has been offering them has been very little in recent times, based on what they are getting.
But the argument here is that, the SABC, as much as it is an interested party in having these rights, it has appeared to struggle to get adverts to keep their finances going for such coverage and they have been struggling on that front for a while, unlike SuperSport TV, according to the source.
“No adverts, any broadcaster will struggle. It is why SuperSport [despite being a paying channel] was able to get two sponsors solely to focus on the DStv Premiership matches, which are Samsung and McDonalds,” the source said.
SAFA CEO Lydia Monyepao said her priority when she assumed the office earlier this year was that the issue of broadcasters was on top of her agenda.
“The TV rights issue has always been there,” Monyepao told iDiski Times in Durban on Friday.
“I think because our deal with the SABC is expiring at the end of October, it was at our top of the to-do list, even when Tebogo Motlanthe left I knew that it was supposed to be done.
“But we got distracted with Bafana’s qualification for the Africa Cup of Nations finals and Banyana going to the Women’s World Cup and now we are back at it. We have been engaging the SABC, talking about the way forward and I think it is positive so far.
“We will see where our negotiations take us but we still have a month and half on the deal. Last time, the agreement was only reached after it expired and I’m hopeful that we will reach the agreement before it expires.”
Bafana are set to start a crucial period with the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers in CAF zone that begin in November and those will be followed by the AFCON finals in Ivory Coast in January and February.
It is critical that the issue of TV rights is concluded soon, according to Monyepao.
“It really is,” she said without hesitation.
“We can’t afford a situation where the masses can’t get access to watch Bafana Bafana and that will be a disaster as well as an association.”
Story by Robin-Duke Madlala (@duke_robin).
