Safa president Danny Jordaan may have been caught spinning a yarn over the administration and winding down of the 2010 Fifa World Cup Legacy Trust worth half a billion rands. The trust was created in 2011 as a $100-million Fifa pledge for South Africans to continue reaping the benefits of hosting the 2010 Fifa World Cup. At the then exchange rate, it meant Fifa paid a total of R450,762,816 into the Legacy Trust in 2011 and 2012. The Legacy Trust was intended to be a self-sustaining source of funding over the long term, with the strategy being to protect Fifa's initial investment into the Trust, investing the interest generated from this amount.
During its lifetime, the trust received about R160-million in interest and paid out just under R547-million in grants. Expenses paid since 2012 totaled an eye-watering R58.6-million. By February 2018, Legacy Trust trustees discussed an "exit strategy" and winding up of the near-depleted trust. By the end of 2021, the "self-sustaining" trust had left less than R5-million in the bank – allegedly used to "wind up the trust."
Safa scored a number of yellow cards in the matter. Apart from the questionable management of a supposedly self-sustaining trust, there are now questions on whether the trust money actually ended up where it was designated to flow, whether Jordaan misled the Safa NEC, and whether half a billion rands were spent on programs that ultimately benefited South African soccer in the long term.
Safa president Danny Jordaan stood before the Safa NEC on 2 October 2021 and announced that the 2010 Fifa World Cup Legacy Trust was to be dissolved. Jordaan told the NEC that he was instructed by Fifa to remove all the South African Legacy Trust trustees, except one, while Fifa would keep two of its representative trustees to initiate the winding down process.
The Safa NEC accepted the "Fifa instruction" and removed Clive Grinaker, Elvis Shishana, Ria Ledwaba, and Obakeng Molatedi as trustees. Fifa trustee Federico Addiechi fired an distress flare of an email that seemed to suggest Jordaan lied to the NEC. Addiechi's email continued, saying that Fifa's legal team was assessing the Safa decision in order to offer advice.
Addiechi warned that the route Safa embarked upon would send a negative message that would damage the reputation of the Trust, its members, and its work. This time, neither Jordaan nor the Safa NEC ensured that "Fifa's expectation" was met, and Addiechi's letter was never formally tabled in front of the NEC.
Safa met a number of Scorpio’s questions, including whether Jordaan lied to the NEC, with a somewhat panicky public press release titled “Enough is enough – SAFA” in which the association’s press office plays at being a victim, but never gets so far as to answer any of Scorpio’s questions. When questioned, Fifa remained mum, except to assert that the process was lawfully handled.
The Legacy Trust trustees met for the last time six months before Jordaan announced "Fifa's instruction" to dissolve the trust. It was decided that only R45-million was left, with R40-million to be paid out to Safa as a grant and distributed to the Women's Super League, local football associations, Men's Regional League, Women's Regional League, and the High Performance Centre in Johannesburg. R5-million was to be left in the bank to wind down the trust. A former trustee told Scorpio that a chunk of this R40-million seems to have been redirected elsewhere.
The trustees left the meeting with the understanding that they would meet again in two weeks to finalise the dissolution of the trust and that “the trustees would be granted access to all bank statements in order to satisfy themselves regarding the validity of all transactions made by the Trust during its existence”. This was particularly to ensure that the money was distributed as approved by the trustees. All subsequent efforts by the trustees, particularly Shishana and Ledwaba, to have eyes on the Legacy Trust financials were in vain, to the point where Shishana wrote the mentioned lawyers' letter to the Master of the High Court. A second trustee broadly confirmed Shishana’s version. By now an acrimonious fight has broken out about the trust’s financials and the NEC has duly taken sides, making for hot-tempered WhatsApp reading.
Jordaan’s yarn that he has allegedly spun around the trust has in the meantime frayed but seems to have ultimately been a successful strategy. A cloak of secrecy hangs around the Legacy Trust financials and specifically smothers the question of “where did the money go?”
The trustees’ bitter complaints, the NEC infighting, and forensic investigator Bart Henderson’s recent high-level overview report, which includes the Legacy Trust, have put Jordaan under pressure. In answer, Safa’s press office duly released a barrage of revealing press releases about “malicious” and “vicious attacks” while farcically refusing to answer journalists’ questions.
Safa’s press office pretends to have answered the question of, “where did the money go?” However, Jordaan’s henchmen did not. Instead, Ernst & Young is abused as a veneer of credibility. The mere presence of the Fifa CFO at relevant meetings also has no bearing on where the money ultimately ended up.
To pierce the cloak of secrecy thrown over the Legacy Trust’s operations and winding-down procedures, and to determine whether soccer in South Africa benefited as much as it should have from the Legacy Trust, a thorough independent forensic audit is needed. There are several yellow cards about the massive total of R58.6-million in Legacy Trust expenses incurred between inception and closure of the trust that can be explored here.
Recorded under “operating expenses” in the Legacy Trust financial report is the item, “salaries”, by far the largest expense, at almost R38-million. Accounting and audit fees, professional fees, office supplies, travel and accommodation costs, telephones, advertising and branding, and advertisement tender were acquired for R1.25-million and R1.3-million, respectively. Three equally odd items include “catering services”, general expenses, and gifts.
Each of these expenses line items raises important questions: were these expenses a priority, were these expenses more important than football kit and training for kids in Mamelodi, did these expenses contribute to the longevity of soccer in South Africa, and did the money actually end up where it was said to have gone? Fair questions arise when considering that a number of the Legacy Trust’s trustees, former and current Safa NEC members, founders, and members of regional football academies are complaining openly and in confidence to Scorpio that the Legacy Trust’s grant funding totalling R547-million may not have ended up where it was intended to go.
