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Lutfeyah Abrahams’ Mitchells Plain home has three “certificates of appreciation” from the organising committees of the 2009 Confederation Cup and 2010 FIFA World Cup – but her family definitely does not feel appreciated by the local football authorities.
In fact, they feel the leadership of SAFA Cape Town has “insulted, bullied, victimised and dragged her name through the mud” – and they have vowed to fight for her reputation as a former regional and provincial chair of Safa Cape Town’s women’s football.
This follows the offer of Safa Cape Town to enter into an agreement for an out-of-court settlement on 22 May 2023 to release the bereavement payment of their late husband and father, Fuad Abrahams, who passed away on 31 May 2019.
According to the order made in the Wynberg Magistrate Court, SAFA CT shall pay the family R13 000 (R12 500 bereavement claim plus R500 in interest) within seven days.
“The money is paid purely for the sake of the settlement of the action, and is made without the admission of any liability on the part of SAFA Cape Town (first respondent) and their treasurer Wayne Weitz (second respondent), arising from this action,” the court order states. Each party was ordered to pay their own legal costs.
Efraan Abrahams, son and executor of Fuad Abrahams’ estate, who took the Association to court for withholding the payment, confirmed that SAFA CT made the payment on Wednesday 31 May 2023 (“exactly four years after my father died”), but stated that the family would proceed with a lawsuit for the defamation of character of his mother.
“It was never about winning or losing, but about integrity,” Abrahams said. “You can’t say let’s settle and get this done when the damage has already been done. They have already dragged my mom’s name through the mud and will not get away with slandering her like that. People need to be accountable, or else this will happen to someone else next time.”
The trouble began shortly after Fuaad Abrahams passed away. He was a member of Liverpool Portland in the Mitchells Plain Local Football Association which is an affiliate of SAFA CT.
Lufteyah Abrahams, also a member of Liverpool Portland who served football in various structures since 1994, asked SAFA CT for a reprint of his registration card, as they could not find the original. The card was required to claim for the bereavement from SAFA insurers, Delphisure Group Insurance. The reprint was produced but SAFA CT allegedly accused Abrahams of fraudulently obtaining it
“They claimed we only registered him for the first time after he had passed away, which is untrue. His card was done in December 2017 to be valid for the 2018-2019 seasons, but they say I fraudulently registered him. And yet you can see his registration number is from many years ago.”
Delphisure Group Insurance approved the bereavement claim in July 2019 – but SAFA CT withheld the money, and Lutfeyah Abrahams was taken to the Disciplinary Committee, where she was found guilty and banned for life from football activities, she said.
She appealed against her ban, but the Association said they would go straight to arbitration which has not been heard to date, “although rules say it must be heard within 72 hours and you can only go for arbitration when there is an outcome of an appeal”.
SAFA CT President, Bennett Bailey, declined to comment in detail on questions sent to him by Cape At 6 Sport, saying: “Please note that this matter has been concluded, and the Court Order is our position.”
Below are the questions that this publication sent to him:
Why did it take so long for the matter to be resolved? What was the gist of SAFA CT’s dispute? Which structure decided to uphold the payment, and which rules or clauses in the SAFA Constitution were followed? How much has SAFA CT spent on this case? And what has the Association done to avoid similar occurrences moving forward?
Ms Abrahams said her family went through a lot, and that it was all politically-motivated.
“I feel that SAFA Cape Town is discriminating against women – because if you are a woman and speak up, you are being victimised. That is what they have done to me. They bullied me, persecuted me – and I would not like the same thing to happen to any other woman or person for that matter.”
And she’s not going to back down now.
“I’m not going to allow people to silence me and I stand firm with Martin Luther King Junior’s quote ‘our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter’. It’s not about who is right; it is about what is right. I have done so much for football and I believe I still have so much to offer, especially to our women who are continuously being suppressed by our structures”.
