Jordaan, Khoza 'make peace'

South African 2010 Fifa World Cup Local Organising Committee (LOC) chairperson Irvin Khoza and chief executive Danny Jordaan appear to have kissed and made up in the wake of an article which appeared in the Mail&Guardian yesterday.

The two were quite reconciliatory in their responses to City Press.

Jordaan said he did not want to comment on the article because he was dealing with the newspaper concerned. “All I can say is that I have worked with Khoza and Molefi Oliphant (the former Safa president) for the past 16 years and I am very happy with what we have achieved.

“I am happy that we have had a very successful World Cup so far.”

Jordaan said there was no tension between him and Khoza and they had been together in a meeting earlier in the day.

Dominic Ntsele, spokesperson for Khoza, who was also mentioned in the article, concurred with Jordaan about the meeting.

“I can tell you on record, as Khoza has instructed me to say that he met with Jordaan this morning. After the usual emergency meeting they had a one-on-one to discuss the article and Jordaan told him that he had never made the utterances attributed to him in the article. Khoza decided to take him at his word,” Ntsele said.

Asked for comment, as his name had been mentioned in a quote attributed to Jordaan that the article was part of a “malicious and twisted” campaign by Khoza and Ntsele to tarnish his name, Ntsele said: “As somebody who grew up reading the Bible, my take is that if it is true that Jordaan said that, he must have been under severe pressure or must have been very upset because the statement ‘I’m not my brother’s keeper’ was made when somebody had been killed.”

In a related Mail & Guardian article published in March, Ntsele was quoted as saying: “The person who has been peddling his (Irvin Khoza’s) name is Dennis Mumble. He was the person who was merchandising this story to every journalist who wanted to hear. He is Danny Jordaan’s brother-in-law and he was doing it for Danny Jordaan.”

Immediately after publication of the story, Ntsele was quick to accuse journalists of publishing stories allegedly fabricated by Mumble.