Jordaan reveals Safa’s VAR plans, Wenger’s visit to SA

Following an outrage about bad officiating, football fans in the country would be glad to know that the South African Football Association (Safa) are moving closer to bringing the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) to South Africa.

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Safa president Danny Jordaan, who was in France last week for Fifa Best Awards, revealed that he met a number of football people at the event including Italian former referee Pierluigi Collina to discuss how to set up the VAR.

Jordaan also revealed that he met with former Arsenal FC coach Arsene Wenger, who is currently Fifa Chief of Global football development.

At the Motsepe Foundation event where R150 million was pledged for schools sports on Thursday, the Safa president revealed that Wenger is expected to come into the country in the next two weeks to help with revamping football development structures in South Africa.

“I have met a lot of influential football people globally lately and when I was in Paris last week, I met among other people, Collina and Arsene Wenger who we want to tap into their expertise as we move towards revamping and taking our game to the next level,” said Jordaan

“We want Wenger to help with boosting and revamping the development structures and Collina to help set up the long-awaited VAR process. These are exciting times for South African football as we are also bidding for the 2027 Fifa Women’s World Cup.’’

In Paris, Jordaan was joined by Safa CEO Tebogo Motlanthe in attending a workshop for associations across the globe.

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He says as part of their Vision 2030, Safa will be visiting Local Football Associations around the country for a workshop and share with them what they learned from Fifa.

“We are vigorously moving forward as part of our Vision 2030 and we have lined up extensive and various programmes to shape our goals. In the coming weeks, we will be calling upon all our Regions, LFA’s and structures to workshop them on what Fifa directed all FA’s to do,” added Jordaan.

Meanwhile, Safa also announced that a South African Under-16 team will be off to Poland, where they will play in a tournament against the host nation, Luxembourg and Northern Ireland from 27 March until 1 April.

The team will be coached by Zipho Dlangalala and they will leave the country on 25 March.