SAFA hopes to resolve disputes before Banyana depart for World Cup

South African Football Association (SAFA) CEO Lydia Monyepao says they are hoping to resolve outstanding contractual disputes with players by Tuesday afternoon before Banyana Banyana depart for the FIFA women’s World Cup on Wednesday and Thursday.

The team boycotted Sunday’s send-off match with Botswana due to several grievances with the football association.

The hastily assembled makeshift Banyana team was thrashed 5-nil by neighbours Botswana at the Tsakane stadium in Brakpan on Sunday.

One of the key issues was of a financial nature. Apparently, the players are demanding more than R500 000 per player for the tournament, and the association is not giving them guarantees.

“We are going to engage further as the Premier Panyaza Lesufi has indicated we had a round table where we engaged each other so we are going to continue with the discussions this afternoon or depending on the availability and iron out outstanding issues before they depart on Wednesday and Thursday for the FIFA World Cup. We are on the same page because the last thing we need is to go to the World Cup without agreeing. We hope by tomorrow midday we would have done all that is required,” says Monyepao.

Banyana were also not happy with Botswana as opposition, deeming them inferior ahead of a tournament as big as the World Cup.

“They indicated to us their displeasure to play against Botswana but we were categorically clear that Botswana is a team of calibre, having knocked us out of the Olympics qualifiers and also giving us tough time in the WAFCON last year. We only beat them 1 -nil with a very strong team that coach Desiree has put forward we should give them the respect they deserve,” Monyepao added.

SAFA claims that they tried to secure high profile opposition for the send-off match, but their efforts were unsuccessful.

“We should also add that this was supposed to be a send off but having written several letters to member associations we wanted a team that would come to South Africa not for the team to go overseas and unfortunately no one came with a positive response. They felt this was outside the FIFA international break. Some of the them asked us to cover their flight costs and we didn’t have the budget,” Monyepao explains.

Another issue that made the players to boycott the match was the choice of Tsakane stadium for the match. But SAFA says other venues were not available.

“It was due to non-availability of stadiums around Gauteng and many fields are under maintenance, others had events going on, others did not have backup generators in case of load shedding and as far as SABC is concerned and journalists so that they can have access to power,” Monyepao elaborates.

The Banyana team will play a final warm-up match against Costa Rica just a few days before their opening World Cup match against Sweden on the 23rd of this month.