The South Africa Football Association has denied reports that it paid for the travel and lodging expenses of the South Sudanese football team during their Africa Cup of Nations qualifier earlier this week.
1996 AfCON winners, Bafana Bafana defeated South Sudan 3-0 to finish top of the Group and secure AfCON qualification.
South Sudan missed out on the 2025 AfCON slot, after they concluded the qualifiers bottom placed with no win.
SAFA refuted the reports in a statement saying the association did not purchase any air tickets for South Sudan.
“The South African football Association has noted misleading reports claiming that South africa paid for the flights and accommodation of the South Sudanese team that played against Bafana Bafana in an africa cup of nations qualifier in Cape Town a few days ago,”
“SAFA would like to put it on the record that these reports are completely false and unfortunate. CAF requires that each national team that participates in the AfCON qualifiers pays for its own flights and accommodation during the qualification campaign. The reports are devoid of any truth,”SAFA said in a statement.
However, SAFA cited South Sudan’s head coach as saying that they were unable to travel with the entire team due to the high cost of tickets, therefore they did not bring a full squad of players for their match versus South Africa.
“Congratulations to South Africa on qualifying for Afcon. We have only 14 to 15 players here, the tickets were too expensive, but we are fighters, our players are in very good spirits and we will do our best,” the statement read.
