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Cape Town - A letter from 2010 Local Organising Committee (LOC) Chief Executive Officer, Danny Jordaan, to FIFA General Secretary, Jerome Valcke, has emerged which seems to implicate Jordaan and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in the scandal surrounding the process behind hosting the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
According to the Mail and Guardian, Jordaan wrote to FIFA on December 10, 2007 regarding the payment of $10 million to the 2010 FIFA World Cup Diaspora Legacy Programme.
The letter describes a contradiction in how the South African government intended payment of the $10 million to be made.
Jabu Moleketi, then Deputy Minister of Finance, recommended that the payment be made to FIFA while Jordaan writes that, after discussion with Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, the "funds should rather be paid over" to the 2010 LOC.
Jordaan then suggests FIFA deducts the amount from the 2010 LOC's future operational budget and deals directly with the Diaspora Legacy support programme.
On Wednesday, Sport and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula again denied any bribe was paid to secure the hosting of the 2010 Soccer World Cup. Mbalula said that the $10 million payment made by South Africa to the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) was an "above board" payment to an "approved project" intended to create a lasting legacy.
Jordaan's letter is dated after the explosive letter that surfaced earlier in the week, where then SAFA president Molefi Oliphant wrote to Valcke requesting that Jack Warner be tasked with the administration and implementation of the Diaspora Legacy Progamme.
The letter dated May 8, 2008 states that "in the view of the decision of the South African government that FIFA withholds $10 million from the LOC's future operational budget funding and advances the withheld money to the Diaspora Legacy Progamme".
The letter's author, SAFA president at the time Molefi Oliphant, also requests that the Diaspora Legacy Progamme be administered and implemented by the president of CONCACAF - who at the time was Jack Warner, the man at the very centre of the current US investigation into a number of corruption and bribery charges.
On Thursday, Mbalula told Beeld newspaper that former president Thabo Mbeki was the one who decided to make the $10m payment.
Asked how and by whom this decision was made, Mbalula replied: “Pres. Mbeki spoke to members of the LOC (local organising committee). The president of the country is the CEO of the country.”
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa said in an interview with News24 that South Africa needed to come up "with another story" to explain the payment.
"We are compromised there. It would be a miracle if we escape the allegations that we have bribed."
