Danny Jordaan was once seen as the saviour of SA football — How did it all go wrong?

Safa president Danny Jordaan (left) and his co-accused Trevor Neethling and Gronie Hluyo at Palm Ridge Magistrate's Court on 13 November 2024 in Palm Ridge, South Africa. It is reported that Jordaan faces charges of fraud and theft amounting to R1.3 million. (Photo: Gallo Images / Sharon Seretlo)

By Yanga Sibembe

27 Nov 2024

Danny Jordaan has steadfastly maintained his innocence amid a number of accusations being levelled against him in recent years. With Jordaan facing charges of fraud and theft involving about R1.3-million, his fate will have extreme repercussions for football in South Africa.

Danny Jordaan rose up the ranks as a young man with tons of passion for both politics and sports. Coincidentally, his two preferred pursuits overlapped in apartheid South Africa – with sports being a conduit for societal change in a country characterised by racial segregation.

Jordaan was born in Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha) three years after apartheid was formally introduced in 1948. Growing up in this environment, he heavily immersed himself in both sports and politics. His favoured sports were cricket and football, while he also joined student anti-apartheid organisations.

Jordaan’s early Safa days

In 1997, having climbed his way up the sports administration ladder (while also working as a lecturer), Jordaan was installed as the South African Football Association’s (Safa) first chief executive. With him at the helm, the soccer body’s finances increased tenfold.

At the time, Jordaan was an avid supporter of the Pickard Commission of Inquiry’s recommendations for football, as evidenced by his first write-up as chief executive in Safa’s annual report.

The Commission had been instituted by the late Nelson Mandela to investigate instances of financial maladministration, amongst other irregularities, within Safa and the Premier Soccer League (PSL).

“The Pickard Commission concluded that personal relationships and individual relationships rose above the interests of Safa, and that the administration displayed apathy towards less lucrative aspects of the sport,” Jordaan wrote in Safa’s annual report for 1996/97.

At this juncture, Jordaan appeared to be a passionate and fierce character who had played a key part in transforming football from being an informal sport (whose head offices were car boots) to a properly run entity which could even attract sponsors. So, what went wrong?

But if the 2017 allegation made by Jordaan’s former ANC comrade, Jennifer Ferguson (that the Safa president raped her in 1993) is true, it means even as Jordaan was doing amazing work within the football sphere, he was already showing glimpses of abusing his power.

This reputation as being a powermonger who crushes all those who oppose him has followed him for years now. It intensified when Jordaan replaced the disgraced Kirsten Nematandani as Safa president in 2013.

Nematandani was accused of playing a part in fixing Bafana Bafana’s friendly matches in the build-up to the 2010 World Cup, which was hosted by South Africa. After being ousted by Safa’s national executive committee (NEC), Nematandani would later be banned from all soccer activities for five years for violating Fifa’s Code of Ethics.

Danny Jordaan Timeline.

The big boss

Meanwhile, Jordaan’s hard work and passion for football during his formative years had finally paid off. The fact that he also played a pivotal part as CEO of the local organising committee that clinched Africa’s first ever instance of hosting a soccer World Cup helped him ascend to the Safa presidency.

His decision in 2015 to juggle his role as Safa president with being the mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay (for the ANC) handed his critics ammunition. Jordaan was accused of being greedy and power hungry, while it was said this double responsibility would see one or both of his responsibilities suffer.

In spite of the criticism, Jordaan was adamant that he had done well during his 12-month tenure as mayor.

“We have cash holdings of R2-billion in the bank, improved credit rating by Moody’s – you can’t argue with Moody’s. And we now have a functional metro police, you can’t argue against progress and success,” he said.

Nevertheless, he would later be replaced by the Democratic Alliance’s Athol Trollip as he went back to being Safa’s boss full-time.

Then in 2018 he was re-elected as Safa president. His main challenger that election, former referee Ace Ncobo, said: “Danny Jordaan is a very strong leader. He is able to exercise the patronage system that he has entrenched within Safa, to his benefit. It’s not an easy system to dismantle.

“He’s got his puppies that he sends around to speak on his behalf. He’s a strong man. If he was not as strong as he is, he would have been out already.”

Damning reports

Danny Jordaan, Trevor Neethling and Gronie Hluyo (From left) Safa president Danny Jordaan and his co-accused Trevor Neething and Gronie Hluyo in the Palm Ridge Magistrates’ Court on 13 November 2024. (Photo: Sharon Seretlo / Gallo Images)

In early 2020, damning reports accusing Jordaan of turning Safa into his personal fiefdom made it into the public domain. One was from then acting Safa chief executive Gay Mokoena, while the other came from former Safa CEO Dennis Mumble, who worked with Jordaan between 2013 and 2018.

Both documents contained a number of allegations related to shenanigans at Safa, but the common theme in both was that Jordaan was making decisions without consulting other NEC members. Mokoena also accused Jordaan of flouting corporate governance rules.

When the majority of Safa’s members turned a blind eye to the allegations contained in these reports, another NEC member, Willie Mooka, took it upon himself to open a criminal case against Jordaan. This was in May 2020.

Though Safa dismissed Mumble and Mokoena as being bitter ex-employees, the Hawks took the matter seriously, which eventually led to the March 2024 raid at Safa House where a number of software items belonging to Safa’s chief of finance, Gronie Hluyo, were seized.

These undoubtedly played a part in the recent arrests of Jordaan, Hluyo and Trevor Neethling, the director of PR company Grit Communications. They are each charged with three counts of fraud, three counts of theft, and conspiracy to commit fraud and theft involving about R1.3-million.

Read more: State confident of securing convictions against Safa chief Danny Jordaan and co-accused

“Mumble as the CEO refused to sign the contract [with Grit] on the basis that the rape allegations faced by Jordaan was a personal matter and had nothing to do with Safa’s mandate to develop football in the country,” read a document compiled by former NEC members after the arrests.

“Despite Mumble’s refusal to sign the contract, an agreement was signed behind his back by Jordaan himself, without the knowledge and consent of Mumble,” it stated.

Safa has consistently denied this version of events, saying the deal with Grit was signed before Ferguson’s rape allegations surfaced, and Jordaan had the authority to sign it as president.

However, in the ongoing case against Jordaan and his co-accused, the State says the contract was backdated to fit this narrative, and Jordaan did not have the power to finalise the deal.

“The allegations of fraud, theft, corruption are frivolous and baseless, driven more by personal vendettas by disgruntled former members of Safa who carry a clear agenda to mischaracterise facts and thereby damage the respective good names and reputations of Safa and its current leadership,” Safa said in a recent statement.

Regardless of the outcome of this latest Safa saga, the organisation has once again taken a massive reputational knock, a blow similar to the days of the Pickard Commission. DM

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South Africa

Jordaan’s early Safa days

The big boss

Damning reports