The Urban Warriors last week announced they will not be participating in the continental competition this year due to concerns with player safety and travel arrangements.
However, it is the responsibility of Safa to withdraw the club from the tournament, with a meeting today between the football governing body and Ajax scheduled to discuss the matter.
“Our withdrawal isn’t finalised,” head coach Roger de Sa told reporters. “We’ve announced our withdrawal because of our problems, but according to what I hear, Safa has to withdraw us. So we are waiting to see if they will withdraw us or not, or make us play.
“There’s a meeting today with Safa and our directors regarding that. I don’t know too much about it. We’ll hear more about it later today I’m sure, but Safa are trying to turn it around and see what they can do.”
De Sa says Safa have not been very helpful in the build up to their scheduled fixture against Angola outfit GD Sagrada Esperança, which was set to take place this weekend.
“There was numerous attempts of communication and requests for help and assistance [with Safa],” De Sa reveals. “I always felt we were pushed: ‘The federation there will sort you out, no worries, somebody there will sort you’ and so on, and you get pushed from pillar to post. But sometimes that’s the way it’s got to happen: when you announce a withdrawal, then everyone jumps. So maybe it’s not a bad thing. But let’s see what happens now.”
The Ajax coach says his team are still ready and willing to participate in the competition.
“We still want to play – we’ve never shied away from that, otherwise we would never have done injections, passports, flight bookings, hotels and so on,” he said. “We’re ready to go, but we still awaiting confirmation of an itinerary from the other side.
"To do 1 200km, you need to know how you are going to travel, and if it’s safe, and if you landing on a gravel airstrip – we just want to know that.”