Sipho Nkumane (Gallo Images)

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Eduan Roos

Johannesburg – Bafana Bafana’s World Cup preparations were dumped into chaos on Monday when their team manager and two other of the country’s footballing officials were suspended – exactly a month before the tournament’s kick-off.

South African Football Association (SAFA) chief executive Leslie Sedibe confirmed that the services of team manager Sipho Nkumane, SAFA commercial director Victor Nosi and SAFA commercial manager Solly Moerane have been suspended pending an investigation into alleged misconduct.

“We will consider the charges against them as nothing more than allegations until the probe has been completed,” said Sedibe.

“Any decision about their future and possible steps will be left to an external committee to investigate.”

Sedibe refused to elaborate on the complaints against Nkumane, Nosi and Moerane, but said that Dennis Mumble, director of strategic planning in the office of SAFA president Kirsten Nematandani, would stand in as interim team manager.

Nkumane was barred from travelling to a training camp with the team in March as he had to complete “several administrative tasks” and because Sedibe did not want the entire team on the same plane.

“It has happened that an entire team is wiped out in a plane crash and we wanted to avoid that,” Sedibe had said earlier.

Even so, the entire team returned to the country on the same flight on April 7.

It is believed that Sedibe had earlier insisted in a letter of complaint to Bafana management that Nkumane stays at home because of his “poor relationship with several colleagues”, including Mumble, Nosi, SAFA financial director Gronie Hluyo and head of communications Morio Sanyane.

Nkumane was also in trouble over incurring “extravagant” expenses, including monthly cell phone bills of between R25 000 and R70 000.