July 25 – In a big turnaround, the South African Football Association (SAFA) has announced it is confident that when auditors complete their work, the 2013-14 account figures will show a profit.
SAFA reported a loss of R46-million (£2.57 million) for the 2012-2013 financial year.
SAFA CEO Dennis Mumble said that part of the turnaround was through ensuring the Bafana Bafana and other national teams fly economy class and avoid booking luxury accommodation.
”We managed to save between R30 million and R35 million from those cost-saving measures alone.” he said.
”Our auditors are here [at SAFA House] as we speak and the savings could be higher than that after they have confirmed the final numbers. From our own management accounting system, and our own projections, I am confident that we will turn a surplus.
”But one thing we are certain of is that we will wipe out the R46 million deficit from the last financial year.”
According to Mumble last year’s losses were partially due to depreciation of the assets and assets acquired from FIFA following the 2010 World Cup: ”Those things will not appear in our books in this financial year because we have disposed of them. The provisions that we made for losses in the 2013 African Nations Cup and this year’s African Nations Championship [both hosted in South Africa] will be reversed because [the organisers] have projected that they will not make a loss.”
SAFA has benefitted from new sponsorship deals with Nike, Grand Parade Investments (Burger King), Avis, Ernst & Young, Total, Castle and Sasol.
Prospects for SAFA look good going forward, with a new broadcast deal for the rights to Bafana and other national team matches expected to be announced which will be worth more than R1 billion.
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