Suspend or be suspended, SAFA told
According to Sportlive, the threat of suspension by Fifa forced the South African Football Association (Safa) to take action against five of its most senior officials, following a Fifa report on match-fixing in four Bafana games leading up to the 2010 World Cup.
A senior Safa source said yesterday that the organisation had "no choice" but to suspend the five officials, who are on "special paid leave," as "Fifa threatened to suspend [Safa] if we did not act decisively," the source said. "We could not risk the suspension of the country; hence we had to act against the people fingered in the report compiled by Fifa."
Fifa is "clear and unapologetic on match-fixing", the source said, Safa officials were told that if the Association did not act against the people mentioned in the Fifa report, "that would mean we were part of it". In a statement on the suspensions, however, Safa insisted that the five were not implicated in match-fixing, Sportlive says.
Read the full article on www.sportlive.co.za.