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Safa is set for showdown talks with its new broadcast partner Siyaya TV on Tuesday.
A senior Safa official said the football administrator was not happy with media utterances attributed to Siyaya TV portraying the association in a bad light.
The official, who did not want to be identified, said that, as happy as they were with the deal – which they concluded last year – they were baffled by Siyaya’s latest reports that Safa was going to lose money as a result of entering into an agreement with the SABC.
“Contrary to those reports, Safa is making more money from the broadcast deal after realising its potential market value with the Siyaya deal.
“There was nothing wrong with concluding a deal with the SABC because we needed a free-to-air partner,” said the insider.
He said Siyaya was still the main rights holder and had sublicensed the rights to the public broadcaster.
The insider said the Siyaya TV deal included all the national teams, digital rights, free-to-air and half the radio rights.
The only rights that were missing were those for Confederation of African Football (CAF) and Fifa-sanctioned matches, which the continental mother body sells as a bloc to all the associations.
“We have always said we were negotiating with the SABC because we did not want the public to lose Bafana. And the SABC has a wider audience.”
He said Safa was guaranteed about R175 million a year for the duration of the contract.
“Our initial deal with Siyaya was for R1.2 billion over six years, and we have extended that for a further three years after clinching the SABC deal.
“According to that deal, we agreed on a set amount for the first three years and for it to be reviewed after that.”
He said the SABC’s deal was 20% more than the previous contract that expired in April.
SuperSport communication manager Clinton van der Berg said his organisation no longer had a contract with Safa, and the pay channel had no obligation to negotiate with Siyaya TV.
Van der Berg said, however, that they would continue showing Bafana’s CAF and Fifa matches because they had a deal with SportsFive.
SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said the public broadcaster was happy with the contract it had signed with Safa.
Kganyago said he could not comment on the other broadcaster’s deal as it had nothing to with the SABC.
“If you remember, our contract came to an end in April, and we renegotiated with Safa and entered into a three-year partnership. We will see what happens after these three years but we are happy with the deal,” he said.
The contract was for Bafana, Banyana and national Under-20 and 23 matches.
Siyaya’s Aubrey Tau did not honour an appointment he agreed to with City Press on Friday and did not respond to messages left on his mobile phone.
Safa’s chief executive, Dennis Mumble, said there was nothing he could say except to confirm what was contained in last week’s press release.
It said that Safa had extended its broadcasting deal with Siyaya TV and it would now run for 10 years
