They say only fools dive in. And while this may not be appropriate for Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula, the way the FIFA scandal has been handled, shows signs of it. The facts, when the bribe allegations first surfaced, the story was ‘what money’, which has now grown into ‘we don’t know what FIFA did with our $10 million‘. Some pointers from Alan Hilburg’s piece – Socratic Method: closing the communication gap wouldn’t go a miss. The lesson, make sure you have the facts before you dive in. In this statement the Congress of the People urge the minister to keep his mouth shut and save the country from further embarrassment. – Stuart Lowman
By *Dennis Bloem
Congress of the People urges Minister of Sports Fikile Mbalula to shut his mouth and save the country further embarrassment. The more he talks and denies the involvement of South-Africa in the allegations of bribery and corruption, the more information is coming to the fore.
We don’t understand why the minister so recklessly addressed the media himself. He was not the Minister of Sports during the World Cup bid. He is therefore acting on hearsay information. He should have asked people who were directly involved in the bid to join him at the front table to unswer the questions posed by journalists. The Minister reminds us of Shakespeare’s “the lady doth protest too much”. He too, indeed, is protesting too much much and that gives us an inkling that he has something to hide.
It is clear that a lot of information is still going to come out. Blatter saw that the game was up in spite of trying to brave it out. We are hoping that our country played by the rules and did not seek to bend them.
It will be a very sad day for the country if anyone at SAFA or in the government was involved in bribery or creative accounting or money laundry. Already, South African footballers are wondering why one hundred million rand had to go to Caribbean football and not to local football. What a massive difference that would have made to the growth of football in our country.
COPE believes that the Hawks investigation must be followed up by an independent commission to uncover whether there was any malfeasance by South African officials who were responsible for organising the World Cup in South Africa.
*COPE spokesperson
