Former SA Football Association executive Vernon Seymour has asked the association to expedite the arbitration process of four national executive committee members who were suspended for allegedly collapsing last month’s meeting.
Seymour, an attorney, confirmed to Sowetan he was acting on behalf of Gladwyn White, Monde Montshiwa, Emma Hendricks and Orapeleng Setlhare who were all served with suspension letters following the March 7 Safa NEC meeting which collapsed after threats of violence.
“I wrote to Safa to ask them to furnish us with the charges (that the four are facing),” Seymour said. “But they refused to do so. I then told them it’s unlawful to suspend members without formal charges, so I asked them to remove the effect of the suspension until they’ve appeared for a hearing. They again declined. The remaining option was to file a notice of dispute for arbitration, as per Safa statutes.”
Seymour said it was now up to Safa and the four to agree on an arbitrator, failing which Safa would then have a final word on who should hear the case. “There must be three names and we have to agree on one. But now this is awkward because Safa is a respondent in this case.”
He expects Safa to return with a favourable answer soon. “There’s no reason to take more than a week to find an arbitrator. I wrote to the CEO (Lydia Monyepao) and I was told she’s on leave. But within a week, we should have a clearer picture.”
There’s consternation among the quartet that their suspension could be dragged on to the point of no official hearing at all. “Safa has a tendency to suspend people indefinitely,” one member said. “We saw (former NEC member) Solly Mohlabeng suspended and to this day, he’s not had a hearing. It is the case with (Safa Nelson Mandela Bay member) Simphiwe Mkhangelwa. He’s been waiting for months for his hearing.”
For now, the four have abided by the decision to bar them from Safa structures, including regions and provinces which they lead, but Seymour warned they won’t be accepting indefinite suspension without charges.
“We have decided to engage Safa in good faith but if there’s an indication they are deliberately contradicting their own rules, we will have no choice to but to take further action,” said Seymour, who is now an ordinary member of his local football association in the Western Cape.
In a five-page letter objecting to their suspension, the four members questioned why fellow NEC member Tankiso Modipa, one of Safa president Danny Jordaan’s vocal supporters who’s accused of instigating the ugly confrontation, was spared. “The very person whose conduct was the proximate cause of the NEC disorder was shielded from every consequence. This is not discipline. This is factional political retaliation,” reads the letter.
Sowetan
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