South African football Association (SAFA) president Danny Jordaan says he was left hurt by the media talks that Bafana Bafana players were not paid their monies for the March FIFA break.
Bafana qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations finals in Ivory Coast next year during the March international break after drawing 2-2 with Liberia at home, where they saw two goals wiped off late in the game, which sent shivers into the spine of many South Africans.
Bafana, going to the crucial reverse fixture in Monrovia, were up against it but won 2-1 to qualify for Africa’s elite competition with a game to spare, having missed last year’s event in Cameroon.
But Jordaan has accused the media that it is easy to look at the leadership negatively after reports over unpaid monies appeared ahead of the game against Morocco.
“I was with them in the dressing room and you guys always look for [the] negative stuff,” said Jordaan to iDiski Times.
“We are told we are corrupt and we are this. People who are not in football [are saying this] and when they were in football, they produced nothing.
“Name one thing that they have produced. And they come and criticize like this.”
This past weekend, Bafana beat World Cup semi-finalists Morocco in their last AFCON qualifying match at FNB Stadium 2-1 – a game which they took to their illustrious oppositions.
They ensured that they have not lost at home in the AFCON qualifiers in 16 years since losing to Zambia 3-1 in Cape Town in 2007.
Jordaan, who was re-elected on 25 June last year at SAFA election congress at the Sandton Convention Centre, said he is trying his best to serve this country, but there are people who are letting him down.
“I was there when we won the Africa Cup of Nations in 1996, I was the CEO of SAFA when we qualified for the World Cup in 1998 in France for the first time, [and also in] 2002 in Korea/ Japan,” said Jordaan, whose face depicted of a man who was in pain about what has been said about him.
“I’m the only South African, who has worked for FIFA in many World Cups, nobody else. I was in two bids for the FIFA World Cups – 2006 and 2010 and [the latter] was the best ever.
“I have accounted for every penny I got and I have letters to back that.”
