Tag: Danny Jordaan

EFF, DA fuming at PE’s new Coloured mayor

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is helping the DA by calling on the newly-appointed Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Danny Jordaan to resign from his SA Football Association presidency.

The opposition party says serving both as mayor under the ruling ANC as well as the football association’s president will affect Jordaan’s “impartiality”.

The EFF logic is not clear as Jordaan has always been openly ANC.

”Jordaan must resign from the association since he has chosen active politics and life as an ANC politician. At the helm of SAFA there must be a person that all the supporters of Bafana Bafana, Banyana Banyana, and the rest of national soccer teams can associate with regardless of which political parties they belong to,” said spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi in a statement on Monday.

The ANC announced on Monday that Jordaan would replace 83-year-old former MP Benson Fihla in the troubled Nelson Mandela Bay.

Opposition parties such as the EFF and the Democratic Alliance (DA) have made inroads into Port Elizabeth as the 2016 local government elections draws nearer. DA Eastern Cape leader Athol Trollip has been confirmed as the opposition’s mayoral candidate for the metro.

In the national elections in 2014, the ANC received 48.8 percent of the votes with the DA closing in on it with 40.8 percent.

The DA is furious that Jordaan, a Coloured, will take away the ethnic Coloured vote that they counted on to win the metro.

National black soccer team ‘unbearable bunch of useless losers’

mbalula
Fikile Mbalula

Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula said het would neither withdraw nor apologise for his scathing comments about the national black soccer team.

Bafana Bafana are a “bunch of losers” and “unbearable, useless individuals”, he said earlier.

Mbalula said the whole country has had enough of the national soccer team’s string of poor performances.

There are no white players in the team, despite South African laws that force too white sports teams to be racially diverse.

At a press briefing on Monday, Mbalula slammed Bafana, the hosts, for being knocked out of the 2014 African Nations Championship (Chan).

He singled out goalkeeper Moeneeb Josephs as the reason for the team’s embarrassing 3-1 defeat by African champions Nigeria.

“What I saw there was not a problem of coaching, it was a bunch of losers, who don’t have any respect for this country and don’t have any respect for anybody,” said Mbalula.

“The second goal … the goalkeeper commits a penalty, alone, single-handedly, and without being assisted by anybody.

Mbalula said the “mediocre” display that was seen on the pitch at Cape Town Stadium shocked him and South African Football Association president Danny Jordaan. It was also a sign that Bafana were in a crisis.

Danny Jordaan
Danny Jordaan

The coloured Jordaan hinted that their woes came as result of having a white coach, Gordon Isegund, and that he should resign.

Mbalula’s comments triggered outrage on Twitter, with some users calling on him to retract his statement and apologise, while others supported and agreed with him.

Asked to comment on calls for Mbalula to withdraw his remarks, the minister’s spokesman, Paena Galane, said “there is nothing to withdraw”.

“The country has also had enough of Bafana Bafana’s performance. The country keeps hosting these events with the hope of improving,” said Galane.

He said football authorities would be meeting with the team to discuss performance.

Gordon Isegund
Gordon Isegund