--- title: "Ahead of the game: How Safa chief Danny Jordaan keeps iron grip on power" description: "South African soccer federation president Danny Jordaan has deftly swatted aside his critics and maintained his power at Safa House for 13 years." type: "NewsArticle" publisher: "Daily Maverick" site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za" section: "SOCCER" author: "Yanga Sibembe" author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/yanga-sibembe/" canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-20-ahead-of-the-game-how-safa-chief-danny-jordaan-keeps-iron-grip-on-power/" published: "2026-09-20T11:13:52" lang: "en-ZA" word_count: 1192 --- # Ahead of the game: How Safa chief Danny Jordaan keeps iron grip on power > South African soccer federation president Danny Jordaan has deftly swatted aside his critics and maintained his power at Safa House for 13 years. By Yanga Sibembe · Published 20 September 2026, 13:13 SAST ## Key points - Danny Jordaan secured a fourth term at Saftu House on 12 September — 157 votes to Sandile Zungu’s 82 — extending a 13‑year iron grip in the closest contest since 2013. - He survives despite a two‑year fraud/theft case, earlier rape allegations and persistent legal challenges from rivals whose court bids have failed. - Safa’s finances are dire: a December 2024 government grant advance was used to pay staff amid a sponsorship‑averse environment as factional patronage takes priority. - Entrenched political patronage and rival camps are crippling commercial interest and, ultimately, South African soccer. ## Content Danny Jordaan’s iron grip on the South African Football Association (Safa) was maintained when he fended off a challenge from businessman and AmaZulu owner Sandile Zungu at the 2026 elections held on 12 September in Midrand. Jordaan’s 157 votes to Zungu’s 82 represented the ­closest contest at a Safa elective congress since the first time he became its president in 2013. In 2018, former Premier Soccer League referee Ace Ncobo pulled out of the elections at the last minute – handing Jordaan an unchallenged run-in. In 2022, Jordaan was challenged by his former vice-president, Ria Ledwaba, as well as former Safa Tshwane president Solly Mohlabeng. He defeated them comfortably, but they accused him and his allies of illegally amending Safa’s constitution just before the elective congress. Ledwaba and Mohlabeng have since approached numerous courts in an attempt to overturn the 2022 electoral outcome. They also challenged their loss of standing in Safa’s structures. However, all these efforts have failed and Safa announced soon after Jordaan’s latest re-election that it will be trying to recover all its legal costs from the duo. That is the power and cunning that Jordaan possesses. Court cases or not, he is constant. Love him or hate him, there is no denying that the 75-year-old is politically astute. How else does one explain his re-election for a record-extending fourth term at Safa House? This is despite Safa’s finances being in the abyss. In December 2024, the organisation had to speed-dial Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie for an advance on its annual government grant just so that it could pay staff. ![Soccer-Jordaan vs Zungu](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/jCLCDi3ht2D6rsoJpu6mBNoU5u0=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/TL_1971542_137044.jpg) *AmaZulu owner Sandile Zungu during a DStv Premiership match against Kaizer Chiefs at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on 13 January 2023. (File photo: Darren Stewart / Gallo Images)* Over the past four years regional structures have also had to forego the monthly grants they are supposed to receive from South Africa’s national governing body of soccer as a result of Safa’s financial woes under Jordaan. Then there is the not-so-small matter of Jordaan facing allegations of fraud and theft of Safa funds. His case has been running for two years and it is still in its pretrial phase. He has taken his political dexterity into the court of law, using his legal team to delay proceedings at every turn, despite the State saying it is ready to proceed with the matter formally. Since being arrested in 2024 alongside Safa financial officer Gronie Hluyo, as well as public relations company owner Trevor Neethling, Jordaan has maintained his innocence. Ironically, this legal matter has to do with him allegedly hiring Neethling’s company to spruce up his public image ahead of the 2018 elective congress. The move came after Jordaan was publicly accused of rape in October 2017 by South African singer and former parliamentarian Jennifer Ferguson, for an incident that allegedly took place in Gqeberha in the early 1990s. Ferguson later filed a formal criminal complaint with the police, but the case was eventually dropped because of a lack of evidence. So, 2026 is not the first time that Jordaan has been re-elected by Safa’s members despite a dark legal cloud hovering over his head. This speaks to both his allegedly dictatorial leadership style, which sees his opposers ostracised, and the lack of principles of the people who continue to keep him in power in Safa. Former presidential hopeful Ncobo once said: “Danny Jordaan is a very strong leader. He is able to exercise the patronage system that he has entrenched in 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 strongman. If he was not as strong as he is, he would have been out already.” ### Defended and adored This may be true, judging by Safa’s interactions with Parliament in particular. Trusted affiliates of Jordaan have consistently and ferociously defended their leader from attacks on his integrity and his grip on power from members of the Portfolio Committee on Sport, Arts and Culture. In fact, his most loyal supporters would probably be willing to accept martyrdom on his behalf. It does not matter to them that when he attends his fraud court case at the Palm Ridge Magistrates’ Court, he is sometimes so frail that he has to hang on to people’s shoulders because he struggles to walk. Then again, considering that he is a masterful player of politics, this could be an act to gain sympathy. Jordaan, a former mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape, knows how to play this game extremely well. Unfortunately, as he and his supporters flex their muscles and influence within the Safa structures, it is South African soccer that suffers. Yes, some of the men’s and women’s national teams have done relatively well, over the past four years in particular. But how much better could they have done had Safa’s integrity not been so compromised, at least as far as public perception is concerned? Jordaan has consistently blamed the media for the public’s view of Safa being compromised, particularly since his arrest two years ago. ### South African soccer suffers One of Jordaan’s biggest supporters is Safa Overberg president Tankiso Modipa. He also heads a pro-Jordaan lobby group in the federation, the Football Transformation Forum. In the run-up to the federation’s recent elections members of its rival group, Save Our Safa, backed Zungu. ![Former President Jacob Zuma Address Supporters Of MK Party In Alexandra](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/Vush6yBp9QEVMo8hv6mPe_TyOE4=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/Arde-KZN-switch3_481206.jpg) *Former president Jacob Zuma addresses MK party supporters at Alexandra Stadium in Johannesburg on 7 February 2024. (File photo: Gallo Images / City Press / Tebogo Letsie)* Such divisions hark back to the ­battles in the ANC when the pro-­Cyril Ramaphosa camp was pitted against the “radical economic transformation” faction. The latter was aligned to former president Jacob Zuma and supported by figures such as Free State strongman Ace Magashule. Of course, while these internal ANC battles were taking place, citizens continued – and continue – to suffer. It’s the same in the ecosystem of South African soccer, as Jordaan ally Modipa somewhat admitted on the African Football Connect podcast ahead of the 2026 Safa elections. “People want to fund people who are going somewhere. At Safa, we fight more \[among ourselves\]. No one from the commercial world would want to come and invest the money here, even myself… We spend more time fighting one another,” Modipa said. “One key area we are focusing on going forward is to ensure we have our own funding model, which will come from the National Executive Committee that will be deployed after the 12 September elections, so that we don’t rely on anyone else. We rely on our own membership in order to go forward,” he added. One thing Jordaan and his backers, such as Modipa, forget is that they may be soccer politicos who are backed by fellow soccer politicos, but in the bigger scheme of things they are there to serve South African soccer and its supporters. They are accountable to the public, not just the codes they have created for themselves in Safa. **DM** *This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.* ![Image](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/T7yGLsNjPQ89niSq1you0ddJTkU=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/2997/DM-180926_438658.jpg)