{"id":45025,"date":"2026-09-09T12:31:44","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T10:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=45025"},"modified":"2026-09-09T12:31:44","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T10:31:44","slug":"zungu-praises-regions-for-defying-threats-ahead-of-safa-elections","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/zungu-praises-regions-for-defying-threats-ahead-of-safa-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Zungu praises regions for defying threats ahead of SAFA elections"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\">South African Football Association (SAFA) presidential candidate Sandile Zungu has saluted all the regions and football leaders behind his campaign, saying they have had to fight off some strong resistance and threats to reach this stage of the campaign.<\/div>\n<div id=\"x_x_ms-outlook-mobile-signature\">\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The SAFA elective congress will be held in Johannesburg this coming Saturday, pitting Zungu against the incumbent Danny Jordaan, who is going for his fourth term.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The AmaZulu owner is confident of the support he\u2019s got and says some of his backers have had to lie low and pretend to be in the opposite camp, for fear of being victimised and marginalised, going to the elections.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cLook, I\u2019ve got to respect people; if that\u2019s what they say and they demonstrate that if you are seen to be not supporting, we\u2019ll dismantle your region and we\u2019ll make sure that you are disqualified from going to elections,\u201d says Zungu.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cSome of them say, \u2018But my name has been put on the list for the National Executive Committee (NEC); I don\u2019t want them to start mobilising against me. I want you, Zungu, but I also want to be on NEC, so the best is to pretend, sing, my president like everyone else but vote for the future \u2019, and we\u2019ve got to be accommodative of that. We\u2019ve got reasonable levels of commitment that we can trust these people who will do the right thing and that\u2019s how we go forward.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u2014SABC\u2014<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":41704,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-45025","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The SAFA elective congress will be held in Johannesburg this coming Saturday.","published_date":"","news_description":"The SAFA elective congress will be held in Johannesburg this coming Saturday.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45026,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45025\/revisions\/45026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=45025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}