Zungu accepts Safa fate, “You win some, you lose some”
Sandile Zungu has accepted defeat in the SAFA presidential election — and he has done it without bitterness.
On Saturday, voting delegates kept Danny Jordaan in office. Jordaan took 157 votes. Zungu managed 82. That gap ended the contest and handed Jordaan another term as leader of South African football.
Online, the reaction was raw. Some supporters called the result a shock. Others demanded investigations. Zungu did not join them.
“Such is the nature of contestations. You win some and lose some,” he wrote on his official social media after the numbers came in. “I lost and have personally congratulated Dr Danny Jordaan. I am really very easy about my fate and I am in very high spirits.”
That is the line that matters. He thanked those who believed he could drive change in the game. Then he drew a hard circle around the truth: the people who vote at the SAFA Elective Congress did not share that belief.
“Thank you everyone for believing I can champion the much-needed change in South African football. The voting delegates at the SAFA Elective Congress didn’t believe so,” added Zungu.
The campaign had been sold as a reset — a challenge to the old order, a pitch for reform. The congress answered with a clear majority for the incumbent. In South African football, power still sits with the delegates in the room, not with the noise outside it.
Zungu’s tone now is the opposite of a grievance. No legal threat. No claim of theft. Just a concession, a handshake, and a reminder that elections end when the votes are counted.
Jordaan stays. Zungu walks away in high spirits, at least in public. For a sport that rarely does grace well, that may be the most striking part of the night.
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