Tuesday Mar 17, 2020. 13:25
The South African Football Association (SAFA) has revealed that they have not taken a major financial hit over the postponement of the scheduled back-to-back 2021 African Cup of Nations qualifiers against Sao Tome & Principe.
Bafana Bafana were set to host the minnows at FNB Stadium on March 27, before playing the return game four days later.
However, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) last week announced that March’s 2021 AFCON qualifiers were postponed due to the coronavirus epidemic.
“We haven’t incurred much costs and luckily for us, we had not yet made full payments for some of these expenses because the match was still in two weeks’ time,” SAFA acting chief executive Gay Mokoena told Sowetan Live.
“We stopped the bookings last week already, so the notice came in good time before we could start spending lots of money.”
SAFA has also suspended all football activities in the country, following the directives of President Cyril Ramaphosa, who addressed the nation on the virus crisis on Sunday night and declared a ban of gatherings of over 100 people as one of the major measures to fight the spread of disease.
“On behalf of the National Executive Committee of the South African Football Association, all members of SAFA are advised to suspend and/or postpone all football matches and football events that are attended by more than 100 people in the country until further notice,” a statement read.
“We will be in contact with the health authorities and we will be reviewing the situation on an on-going basis.”
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