South African Football Association President Danny Jordaan’s legal team’s attempt to declare his arrest, and that of his two accused, unlawful has failed. This was the second time Jordaan launched a legal bid against his arrest. Late on Tuesday, the 73-year-old Jordaan attempted to evade arrest by filing for an urgent interdict at the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court in Palm Ridge.
Then on Thursday, another attempt was made by Jordaan’s legal team to approach the Johannesburg High Court to declare the arrest of the three individuals unlawful. But that was also unsuccessful with the case removed from the court roll, and was not part of the cases to be heard on Thursday. “Look, a case of this nature, we can’t understate the seriousness and that hinges on a few things … not just on the gravity of the charges themselves, but the amount that is being claimed. It’s an amount in the excess of R1.3 million. So, based on that alone, it is a serious matter. but even more egregious than that is what the charges are actually hinged on.
“There’s the criminal and legal aspect; there’s the reputational aspect of himself and there’s the reputational aspect of the bodies that he is serving in. All of those now need to be taken in mind and all of those need to be protected and to the extent that he does choose to step down, it needs to be made clear that he is not stepping down as a sign of guilt or an admission of guilt. Even though those things aren’t implied, it has to be made clear to protect all reputations,” adds Smith.