When Bafana Bafana lost 2-0 to Nigeria midweek, the match was staged in honour of Madiba.
The boys will do it again on Saturday when they take on Burkina Faso in the Mandela Sport and Culture Day at FNB Stadium.
This is another historic event organised in honour of the great man, who has been in a Pretoria hospital bed since June.
The Springboks square off against Argentina at the same venue, with a South African Legends soccer team playing against their Italian counterparts.
Never before have the football legends, Bafana and the Boks taken to the same pitch in one day: only the great Madiba can pull off that magic.
For that, and the fact that his health was reportedly slowly improving, he is the undisputed newsmaker of the week.
This week, the inevitable happened when Vavi was eventually suspended for bringing labour union federation, Cosatu into disrepute.
The issue at hand is the adult games he and a married junior employee played in Cosatu offices, and the manner in which the employee was recruited.
Vavi, a man of great substance and wisdom, should have known he could not just confess, apologise and expect life to carry on as if nothing happened.
This week also saw the commemoration of the 2012 labour unrest at Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana which claimed the lives of 44 people.
Sadly, lots of questions about the incident remain unanswered after the victims’ legal team ran out of money. The state should seriously consider footing the bill for this. No question about that.
In other news, residents of Protea South in Soweto took to the streets in a service delivery protest which soon turned violent amid clashes with the police.
The protest occurred as the nation was mulling over a report that only three municipalities across the country – all controlled by the DA – received clean audits from Auditor General Terence Nombembe.
He added that poor performance by local authorities was due to bad leadership, and was the reason residents protested.
Also this week, Parliament heard that more than 1 000 police officers across the country have criminal records. That’s despicable from people tasked with ensuring South Africa is safe and crime free.
Malema’s dealings with the SA Revenue Services continued to make an interesting read for news junkies.
Beeld newspaper reported that President Jacob Zuma’s recent holiday on a Mozambican island, and that of his deputy Kgalema Motlanthe in the
Seychelles have cost the taxpayer R2.6 million. Shame on you gentlemen.
Happy weekend Joburg.
