Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie has accused the South African Football Association (SAFA) of leaving him politically exposed over the stalled introduction of Video Assistant Referee (VAR).
He told Parliament that he was repeatedly ‘slaughtered’ in the media while SAFA remained silent.
The extraordinary admission came during a tense Portfolio Committee on Sport, Arts and Culture meeting on Tuesday evening , where McKenzie gave a blunt account of his deteriorating relationship with SAFA over the government’s financial support for the VAR project.
“I can tell you, Safa has done me very dirty,” McKenzie told MPs.
He said he had consistently assisted SAFA and expected the association to publicly acknowledge that government had provided the money needed to advance the project.
“Every day I get slaughtered in the media for VAR, and every day I thought they would just stand up and say no, the Minister has given us the money. The Minister has done what he said he’d do. Nothing,” he told Parliament.
He said the silence became particularly frustrating because he believed SAFA should have defended the government’s role while the Minister faced criticism over the failure to deliver VAR.
“Every day. I’m like, but what kind of people am I dealing here with?”
He said he subsequently wrote to SAFA but received no response.
The confrontation has now escalated into a financial dispute, with McKenzie demanding the return of state money allocated towards the VAR project.
On Tuesday, SAFA confirmed that the R20 million received from the Department remains untouched in a separate account and has not been utilised.
The Department has also clarified that the R20 million was the first tranche approved by National Treasury, following earlier public discussions around substantially larger potential allocations.
McKenzie also told the MPs that SAFA had been given 21 days to provide satisfactory answers on the VAR project, failing which the department would cut financial assistance and pursue other options.
He told the committee that he will be writing to FIFA and CAF.
He said he will also explore an alternative structure involving other stakeholders, including the Premier Soccer League (PSL), if SAFA failed to move the project forward.
“There will be VAR, whether these people in SAFA … they don’t want it. It will be there. We cannot be held hostage by people who want to see our country going forward,”McKenzie said.
This is where the story becomes constitutionally and internationally complicated.
The Minister himself acknowledged that FIFA’s rules around government interference create a difficult boundary.
FIFA expects national football associations to operate independently from political interference.
A parliamentary committee member, Tebogo Letsie explicitly warned MPs against crossing that line, noting that FIFA rules prohibit government from directing SAFA’s appointments, dissolving its executive, influencing elections or taking over its day-to-day administration.
The question is no longer when South Africa will get VAR.
It is whether the country can introduce the technology without turning the VAR project into another battle over governance, money, political authority and football independence.
