Pretoria - The South African Football Association (Safa) president, Kirsten Nematandani, says the association is strongly against any form of bribery, unfair play and dishonesty in football.
This is in response to the world football governing body, FIFA, investigating match fixing allegations of Bafana Bafana's 2010 FIFA World Cup warm-up matches played against Guatemala and Colombia.
"While no official notice has been communicated to us by FIFA, Safa is strongly against any form of bribery, unfair play and dishonesty.
"We believe match fixing and bribery goes against the grain of FIFA's fundamental philosophy of fair play and any evidence should therefore be completely rooted out from football," he said.
Bafana beat Colombia 2-1 in a match dominated by penalties in May last year. It took penalty kicks from Teko Modise and Katlego Mphela to seal Bafana's victory while Giovanni Moreno registered Columbia's single goal, also through a penalty.
Ten days before the kick-off of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Bafana beat Guatemala 5-nil in a match played at Peter Mokaba stadium in Limpopo.
"We would like to take this opportunity to assure FIFA of our unqualified cooperation and support should they institute any form of investigation," Nematandani said.
The Guatemala friendly match was handled by Niger referee Ibrahim Chaibou, who is at the centre of match-fixing allegations in the friendly match between Nigeria and Argentina, which the Nigerians won 4-1.
Nematandani further said: "We would also like to applaud FIFA for, in the past, taking a no-nonsense approach towards any form of match-fixing allegations, and we at SAFA would give them our maximum support to get to the bottom of this matter and root out the scourge.
"Should any of our administrative members be found to have played any role in the matter, purportedly of having engaged in any form of untoward behaviour regarding the two matches, the association will, without hesitation, take appropriate action against the culprits in order to protect its integrity and for the good of the game.
"As things stand, we want to believe that the matches under question were played in the spirit of fair play and that the outcome of the investigation will reveal efforts put by respective teams."
