S.African football officials suspended

The team manager for South Africa’s national side Bafana Bafana has been suspended one month before the World Cup, the South African Football Association (SAFA) said Tuesday.

Sipho Nkumane and SAFA’s commercial director Victor Nosi were suspended pending disciplinary proceedings, the organisation said in a statement, without giving details of the charges.

“It must be emphasized that at this stage it is only allegations that have been levelled against Messrs Nkumane and Nosi and any decisions as to whether these allegations are true or not will be left to external independent parties to determine,” the statement said.

Neither position is involved with the coaching of the team, but the suspensions highlight the disarray within South African football.

When Bafana Bafana traveled to Brazil in March for a training camp, Nkumane wasn’t allowed to immediately join the team because of delays in completing his administrative work.

Nosi was reportedly involved in a deal that gave half of the revenue from the Bafana trademark to an independent company. Those royalties are estimated at 80 million rand (10.5 million dollars, 8.3 million euros), according to The Sunday Times newspaper.

The announcement came exactly one month before the World Cup kick-off, with the national side rank 90th in the world, lower than any participating any team except North Korea.