The SA Football Association (Safa) will post a loss of R74m at its annual general meeting (AGM) on Sunday, acting CEO Gay Mokoena revealed on Thursday.

This loss arises from Safa’s financial year from December 2018 to December 2019.

Addressing a media conference at Safa House in Nasrec, Mokoena said there would be some good news and some bad news presented at the AGM.

He said the R74m deficit could mostly be attributed to the loss incurred at the time Safa and the cash-strapped SABC could not agree on broadcast rights for national teams, particularly Bafana Bafana’s home games.

“We had some issues in the previous financial year regarding broadcasting rights. You will recall that we used to have a revenue stream of about R110m [annually] from the rights,” Mokoena said.

“We didn’t have that income. That has affected our performance very negatively. And we are unfortunately going to report a loss in our financial performance of approximately R74m. And this R74m is significantly resultant from the loss that we have incurred because of the SABC [rights issue].”

Mokoena said the loss incurred was softened by significant cost-cutting measures taken by Safa in the past year, reducing overheads by about R80m.

Safa’s acting CEO revealed that the SABC’s new broadcast rights contract with Safa for national team home matches is worth R50m for its first year. This is significantly less than the previous R110m, which the SABC had declined to renew in protracted negotiations, with the cash-strapped public broadcaster saying it simply could not afford the amount.

Mokoena said the four-year broadcast contract is “flexible” and a larger sum can be negotiated if the SABC’s financial position improves.

“We have a flexible amount, if I could call it that. And that’s why we have agreed to review the amount on an annual basis,” Mokoena said. “For a start, because we are all in a difficult period. We have a R50m sponsorship. But it’s not all cash. It’s what you call ‘value in kind’.”

Mokoena also revealed that Safa has been approached by four sports brand companies to sponsor the national team. Nike’s contract expired after the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt in July.