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It is of serious concern that the South African Football Association (SAFA) has yet to pay match fees to our national football team following the international friendly against Zimbabwe in Durban last month.

This matter, raised in this morning's City Press, warrants an immediate and unequivocal resolution from SAFA. Players' wages must be paid this week.

It would be entirely reprehensible for SAFA to start to create chaos and uncertainty in Bafana Bafana's ranks just months before their most important tournament ever.

While we appreciate that CEO Leslie Sedibe has barely been in the job a month, there can be no excuse for failing to pay players' wages, especially in an organisation that generated R32-million profit last year.

This is not the first time that SAFA has made a significant profit in a financial year and then failed to make good on its commitments. SAFA paid its entire national executive committee bonuses worth R2.5 million (a total of R125 000 per member) in 2007 for their ‘sterling work'. At the time, the football body was only issuing grants worth R150 000 to its 52 regions to manage their affairs. The SAFA-Transnet School of Excellence, which had for years been the organisation's flagship of soccer development, has been hit in recent years by staff shortages and financial mismanagement which have compromised its effectiveness. At one stage, the school almost spluttered to a stop after some service providers pulled their services due to non-payment disputes with the school. What made this all absolutely astonishing is that in 2008 SAFA posted a R19-million profit and had 18 sponsors, yet those funds simply weren't filtering down to where they needed to go.

Clearly this situation must not be allowed to repeat itself, particularly with the morale of our national football team ahead of the 2010 World Cup at stake.