Happy 20th birthday to Safa!
Happy 20th birthday to Safa!
Posted: 2011-12-08 12:51
Today, December 8, is the South African Football Association's 20th birthday.
Have your say: Do you think Safa deserves a birthday cake?
A breakdown of Safa's history from sahistory.org.za:
The South African Football Association (SAFA) was founded on 8 December 1991 after a long period of racial segregation. Mluleki George was elected to serve as the interim chairman for the first year of SAFA's existence.
Football, like other sporting disciplines in South Africa, was racially segregated. In 1902 the South African Indian Football Association (SAIFA) was founded in Kimberley, where a national competition for Indians - the Sam China Cup was played. This was followed by the formation of the South African Bantu Football Association (SABFA) and the South African Coloured Football Association (SACFA) in 1933.
In 1951 the South African Football Association (SAAFA), the South African Indian Football Association (SAIFA) and the South African Coloured Football Association (SACFA) formed the anti-apartheid South African Soccer Federation (SASF).
In 1958 that Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) officially recognised the White body of the Football Association of South Africa (FASA) as the sole governing body of soccer in South Africa. Then on 11 May 1959 the National Football League (NFL) was formed by 12 clubs from Johannesburg, and Pretoria.
When FIFA suspended South Africa because of its rigid racial segregation policies in 1962, the FASA sanctioned an interracial match in Maseru in Lesotho between teams the Black African Pirates and the White Germiston Callies. In the 1970s soccer continued to grow as a sport and to change its administrative structures.
For instance in 1971 the National Professional Soccer League was launched and it later changed its name to the Premier Soccer League (PSL). Once processes for the dismantling of apartheid were set in motion, the four historically separate soccer bodies came to together in Johannesburg to form the South African Football Association (SAFA) on 8 December 1991.
: 2011-12-08 13:21
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