Football in South Africa Timeline 1862-2012

Published date

03/04/2011

Last updated

16/10/2024

1862: The first documented football matches in South Africa are played in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth (between White civil servants and soldiers).
1879: Pietermaritzburg County Football Club (Whites-only) is established.
1880: African and Indian soccer clubs are active in Durban and Johannesburg
1882: Natal Football Association (Whites-only) is founded.
1892: The Whites-only South African Football Association (later known as FASA) is formed.
1895: SAFA affiliates to the English Football Association
1896: Indian football clubs come together to form the Transvaal Indian Football Association.
1897: The famous English amateur soccer team ‘Corinthians' tours South Africa (and again in 1903 and 1906).
1898: The Orange Free State Bantu Football Club tours England, becoming the first South African team to play in Europe.
1899: The team is called the ‘Kaffir Football Team’. They play 50 games in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and France. They are captained by Joseph Twayi who becomes the Treasurer of the South African Native National Congress in 1915. They are the first South African football side to tour abroad and for most opposition the first black team they played against.
1902: Durban ‘Bush Bucks' soccer club is established on an American Board mission station.; The South African Indian Football Association (SAIFA) is founded in Kimberley, where a national competition for Indians ”” the Sam China Cup ”” is held.
1903: The famous English amateur soccer team ‘Corinthians' tours South Africa for a second time (first in 1897 and later in 1906).; The South African Indian Football Association is formed in Kimberley.
1906: The All-White South African soccer team tours South America.; Soccer case back in Court. State to appeal over group areas case at Curries.; African clerks from Natal form ‘Old Natalians' at Simmer and Jack Mine, Johannesburg.
1907: The famous English amateur soccer team ‘Corinthians' tours South Africa for a third time (first in 1897, and then in 1903).
1910: The South African Football Association joins FIFA, the first association from outside of Europe to do so.; The English Football Association sends an amateur representative side to tour South Africa and they only play against white sides.
1916: The Durban & District Native Football Association is established.
1920: The English Football Association sends an amateur representative side to tour South Africa and they only play against white sides.
1924: Whites only South Africa side tours Britain.
1929: The English Football Association sends an amateur representative side to tour South Africa and they only play against white sides.
1929: The Johannesburg Bantu Football Association is founded.
1931: Motherwell, a Scottish professional side, tours South Africa (and again in 1934).
1932: The South African African Football Association (SAAFA) is formed and it launches the Bakers Cup national tournament.
1933: The South African Bantu Football Association (SABFA) and the South African Coloured Football Association (SACFA) are formed.
1934: Motherwell, a Scottish professional side, tours South Africa for a second time, after an earlier visit in 1931.
1935: The Transvaal Inter-Race Soccer Board is formed by Africans, Indians, and Coloureds.; The Suzman Cup, the first official inter-racial tournament between Africans, Coloureds, and Indians, is established.
1936: The Godfrey South African Challenge Cup is established
1937: Orlando Pirates football club is founded.; The SAAFA's (South African African Football Association) Bakers Cup is renamed the Moroka-Baloyi Cup.
1939: The English Football Association sends an amateur representative side to tour South Africa and they only play against white sides.
1940: The Inter Race Soccer Board organises a few games between the various racially divided soccer associations.; A referee is killed by spectators at the Bantu Sports Club, Johannesburg.
1944: The African National Congress sponsors the first soccer match at the Bantu Sports Club.
1946: The Natal Inter-Race Soccer Board is established with the help of Albert Luthuli.
1947: The soccer team Moroka Swallows is founded.
1947: White Springbok team tours Australia and New Zealand
1950: In Elisabethville, Belgian Congo, Katanga defeats the Johannesburg Bantu Football Association (8-0) in an unofficial African football championship.
1951: SAAFA (South African African Football Association), SAIFA (South African Indian Football Association) and SACFA (South African Coloured Football Association) form the anti-apartheid South African Soccer Federation (SASF).
1952: The South African Football Association (SAFA) (representing Whites) is re-admitted to Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA).
1953: The Durban & District African Football Association wins the Rhodes Centenary tournament in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).; Big Inter-Race soccer match to be played on Sunday (SA Police vs Tongaat)
1955: Topper Brown, a British coach, leads Natal Africans to victory in both the Moroka-Baloyi Cup and the Natal Inter-Race Singh Cup.
1955: White Springbok team tours Australia
1956: The English Football Association sends an amateur representative side to tour South Africa.
1956: Minister of the Interior, T. E. Donges, articulates the first apartheid sport policy.; The South African Football Association (SAFA) changes its name to the Football Association of Southern Africa (FASA) and, due to pressure from FIFA, deletes the racist exclusionary clause from its constitution.; Stephen “Kalamazoo” Mokone and David Julius become the first Black South Africans to sign professional contracts in Europe, with Cardiff City and Sporting Lisbon respectively.
1958: The South African Bantu Football Association (SABFA) affiliates with the Football Association of Southern Africa (FASA).; Darius Dhlomo joins Stephen Mokone at Heracles in the Dutch professional league.; The Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) officially recognises the Football Association of South Africa (FASA) as the sole governing body of soccer in South Africa.
1959: The National Football League (NFL) is launched as the country's first entirely professional club league. It is reserved for Whites.; May, Orlando Stadium opens.
1960: The Confederation of African Football (CAF) expels South Africa.; South African Women's football starts.
1961: FIFA suspends the Football Association of South Africa (FASA).; FASA includes some Black players within its structure. African, Indian, and Coloured officials in the anti-apartheid South African Soccer Federation (SASF) form the anti-racist professional South African Soccer League (SASL). SABFA (the South African Bantu Football Association) launches a National Professional Soccer League (NPSL), which shuts down the following year.
1962: Eleven fans die at Jeppe Station, Johannesburg, following a Moroka Swallows ”” Orlando Pirates derby at Natalspruit.; 10,000 spectators in Maseru (Lesotho, then Basotholand) watch the Whites-only Germiston Callies defeat the Black Pirates (3-1).; Orlando Pirates Women's Football Club and Mother City Girls are among the first (short-lived) Black women's football teams.
1963: The FIFA executive lifts the Football Association of South Africa's (FASA) suspension. FASA announces it will send an all-White team to the 1966 World Cup, and an all-Black team to the 1970 World Cup. FIFA president Stanley Rous gets FASA temporarily reinstated in 1963, but FASA is again suspended in 1964. It is expelled from FIFA in 1976.
1964: FASA's (Football Association of South Africa) suspension is re-imposed by the FIFA Congress.; The Federation leadership is persecuted, arrested, or banned.; Avalon Athletic win the SASL (South African Soccer League) double (League and Cup titles).; Eric “Scara” Sono, Jomo Sono’s father, dies in a car crash at the age of 27.; The Pretoria Sundowns soccer team is revived.
1965: Moroka Swallows win their first national championship (SASL - South African Soccer League).; Leeds United winger Albert “Hurry-Hurry” Johanneson becomes the first Black South African (indeed the first Black ever) to play in an English FA Cup final (against Liverpool).
1966: The anti-racist SASL (South African Soccer League) folds due to lack of playing grounds.
1969: The Apartheid regime cancels a match between White champions Highlands Park and Orlando Pirates in Mbabane, Swaziland. The racist Football Association of South Africa's (FASA) reputation and international standing is seriously damaged as FIFA had sanctioned the match.; The South African Soccer Federation forms a six-team professional league.
1969/70: African clubs are instructed to deregister Coloured and Indian players. Orlando Pirates, with 4 Coloureds and 1 Indian, defied the ruling. The team was expelled from National Professional Soccer League (NPSL). They, along with Witbank Black Aces, opted to join the Amateur League, the Johannesburg Bantu Football Association (JBFA).; South Africa is expelled from the Olympic Movement.
1971: The National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) launches the Keg League (later renamed Castle League), sponsored by South African Breweries. Pirates returns to the NPSL. Coloured and Indian players are not allowed to take part in the NPSA still. Bernard “Dancing Shoes” Hartze, one of the Coloured affected by the ruling joins Cape Spurs.; Kaizer Motaung's All-Star XI is renamed Kaizer Chiefs.
1972: Bernard “Dancing Shoes” Hartze (Cape Town Spurs, Federation Professional league) sets a South African record for a single season goal-scoring average: 35 goals in 16 matches.”; July, The Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) informs the non-racial South African Soccer Federation (SASF), led by Mr. Norman Middleton, that its application for membership arrived too late to be placed before the next congress of FIFA in August. FIFA also clarifies that the White Football Association of South Africa had not been suspended for contravening its rules but because of South African Government policy. Acceptance of FIFA would have meant expulsion of FASA (Football Association of South Africa).; August, The Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) executive gives special permission to the Football Association of South Africa to have overseas teams participate in the South African Games in Pretoria in 1973, asking for assurance that Blacks would be allowed to watch the games. (South Africa has friends in the FIFA executive; its position in the FIFA Congress is weak. Congress approval was not necessary for the above special permission and the matter was not mentioned at the FIFA Congress in Paris.)
1973: 26 January, The Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) announced, after a postal ballot of the executive committee, to allow foreign teams to go to South Africa to participate in the South African Games in March.; 11 February, The Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) withdraws the special permission it had given to amateur football teams to take part in the South African Games to be held in Pretoria in March-April 1973, when it becomes clear that FASA is planning separate teams for different ethnic groups. FIFA had temporarily lifted suspension on the Football Association of South Africa (FASA) on the understanding that the Games would be multi-racial.; 25 May, The Minister of Sport and Recreation, Dr. P.G.J. Koornhof, announces in the House of Assembly that the Government had given approval “for the staging in 1974 of an open national soccer tournament in which the different South African nations can participate on a multinational basis. This is that a South African representative white team, a South African representative Coloured team, a South African representative Indian team and a South African representative Zulu, Xhosa or any other Bantu (sic) national team can compete in the tournament.”; A Whites-only team beats a Blacks-only team twice in the “multi-national” South African Games (4-0; 3-1) at the Rand Stadium, Johannesburg.
1974: A Whites-only team defeats a Blacks-only team (2-0) in the Embassy Multinational Series at the Rand Stadium.; 3 June, Mr. Norman Middleton, president of the South African Soccer Federation, is refused a passport to attend a meeting of the International Football Federation (FINA) in Frankfurt on 11 June. He had refused to give an undertaking to the Minister of the Interior that he would do nothing to harm South African sport at the Frankfurt meeting. He said he considered the issue of a conditional passport to be “blackmail.”; 14 October, The Minister of Sport, Dr. Piet Koornhof, says in the House of Assembly that the Government's aim is to move away from discrimination in sport, disclosing that a “champion of champions” soccer tournament would be held, probably in February: “White and non-White clubs could take part”. Further, he invites the major cricketing bodies for round table talks on their problems. He confirms that a Black boxer would meet a White boxer for the South African championship. Under specific questioning, he replied that the Coloured Proteas could play against the Rugby Springboks any time.; 6 November, The executive committee of the International Football Federation (FIFA) rejects an Ethiopian proposal to expel South Africa. It decides that the matter can be dealt with only at the next congress, during the Olympic Games in Montreal, in 1976. South Africa remains suspended, meaning that foreign players, not teams, can still be imported to South Africa. FIFA decides to send a delegation to South Africa early in 1975 to investigate conditions.
1975: Cape Town-based Hellenic (White) claim the Chevrolet Champion of Champions by defeating Kaizer Chiefs (5-2 on aggregate). The final was played obver two legs. Hellenic won the first leg 4-0 in Cape Town. Chiefs won the return leg 2-1 at the Rand Stadium in Johannesburg. It was considered the first win of an African soccer team over a white team.
1976: South Africa is formally expelled from FIFA.; The Football Council of South Africa is formed, chaired by George Thabe.; Keith Broad joins Orlando Pirates and becomes the first white player to sign for a black team.
1977: The National Football League (NFL) folds.; SABC-TV makes its first broadcast of a South African football match.
1978: Wits University stuns Kaizer Chiefs (3-2) in the first Mainstay Cup final.
1978: July, A Uruguayan universities soccer team arrives in South Africa for a five match tour.
1979: Keith Broad joins Orlando Pirates and becomes the first white player to sign for a black team; Kaizer Chiefs sign a major sponsorship deal with Premier Milling Company.
1981: SABC-TV makes its first live broadcast of a South African football match.
1983: For the first time, commercial sponsorships of soccer exceed R1 million.; Jomo Sono buys Highlands Park, an historically White club in Pretoria and renames it Jomo Cosmos. This move by Sono signals growing Black power in South African soccer.
1985: Unity talks between the Federation and Football Council break down. The Breakaway National Soccer League (NSL) is launched in accordance with anti-apartheid principles.; A split within Orlando Pirates turns violent a “rebel” official is stabbed on the pitch at Ellis Park in front of a national TV audience.
1988: ANC representatives meet with National Soccer League (NSL) and Federation officials in Lusaka to discuss “unity” and the role of soccer in the struggle against apartheid.
1989: The First National Bank stadium, capacity 76 000, opens at Soccer City (NASREC), between Johannesburg and Soweto.
1991: January, 41 fans die in a melee during a Pirates ”” Chiefs friendly at Oppenheimer Stadium, Orkney.; 8 December, Four historically divided and entirely separate bodies unite and found the non-racial South African Football Association (SAFA) in Durban.; Mluleki George serves as the interim Chairman for the first year of the existence of the Association.
1992: Professor Lesole Gadinabokao becomes the first president of SAFA, serving from 1992 to 1994.; 3 July, The South African Football Association (SAFA) is accepted back into FIFA. Domestic soccer is reorganized along non-racial, democratic principles.; SAFA receives a standing ovation at the Confederation of African Football's congress of 1992 in Dakar.
1992: 7 July, South Africa re-enters international football by hosting its first fully representative international soccer match at King's Park Stadium. The South African national team, later known as Bafana Bafana (the Boys), defeats Cameroon 1-0.
1994: 10 May, Hours after his presidential inauguration, Nelson Mandela attends, with 80,000 spectators at Ellis Park, Johannesburg, the South Africa ”” Zambia soccer match (2-1).; Solomon 'Sticks' Morewa becomes the second president of SAFA since its formation.
1995: Orlando Pirates win African Champions' Cup.
1996: South Africa hosts the African Cup of Nations. They go on to become champions of Africa after beating Tunisia (2-0) at First National Bank stadium.; The Premier Soccer League (PSL) is established.; The Pickard Commission of inquiry highlights corruption and mismanagement of top-flight soccer.
1997: Bafana Bafana qualifies for the World Cup finals for the first time with a 1-0 victory over Congo at First National Bank stadium.; Manning Rangers crowned the first PSL champions.; Dr. Oliphant becomes the third president of SAFA since its formation.; May, South African Football Players Union (SAFPU) is founded.
1998: Bafana Bafana appears in their second African Nations Cup, making it through to the final where they lost 2-0 to Egypt.; Bafana Bafana participates for the first time in the FIFA World Cup in France.; Mamelodi Sundowns crowned PSL champions for the first time.
1999: Ajax Amsterdam and Seven Stars launch Ajax Cape Town joint venture.; Bafana Bafana record its first win over European opposition by beating Sweden 1 - 0.; Mamelodi Sundowns crowned PSL champions for the second time.
2000: February, The game between the Bafana Bafana and Algeria ends in a 1-all tie.; Bafana Bafana reach the semi-finals of the African Nations Cup, where they were beaten by Nigeria; Mamelodi Sundowns crowned PSL champions for the third time.
2001: 43 fans die in a crush at Ellis Park during an Orlando Pirates ”” Kaizer Chiefs derby.; Orlando Pirates crowned PSL champions for the first time.
2002: Bafana Bafana participates for the second time in the FIFA World Cup in Korea and Japan.; Cape Town-based team, Santos crowned PSL champions for the first time.
2003: Orlando Pirates crowned PSL champions for the second time.
2004: 15 May, South Africa is awarded the right to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup.; Kaizer Chiefs crowned PSL champions for the first time.
2005: Kaizer Chiefs crowned PSL champions for the second time.
2006: Mamelodi Sundowns crowned PSL champions for the fourth time.
2007: Mamelodi Sundowns crowned PSL champions for the fifth time; June, PSL becomes the richest league in Africa after signing a R1.6-billion broadcast deal with SuperSport International.
2008: SuperSport United crowned PSL champions for the first time.
2009: 14 - 28 June, Fifa Confederations Cup takes place in South Africa.
2010: South Africa hosts the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It is the first time in the tournament’s history that it was hosted by a country on the African continent. South Africa was knocked out in the group stages of the competition.
2011: South Africa’s men’s soccer teams fail to qualify for major competitions in 2010. The Under 23 soccer team failed to qualify for the 2012 Olympics to be held in London. The men’s soccer team failed to qualify for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations.; Banyana Banyana, South Africa Women’s Soccer Team, qualifies for the 2012 London Olympics
2012: Orlando Pirates, founded in 1937, celebrates its 75th anniversary; Moroka Swallows, founded in 1937 and Pirates’ traditional rivals, celebrates its 65th anniversary