SA Tourism was looking to seal a sponsorship deal with Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur.
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- SA Tourism CFO Johan van der Walt has been instructed to justify why he should not be suspended.
- Van der Walt has been linked to an agency identified in the controversial Tottenham Hotspur sponsorship proposal that made headlines this week
- He has not responded to the letter.
South African Tourism CFO Johan van der Walt has been issued with a letter instructing him to justify why he should not be suspended, the board said on Tuesday.
“He has been given a letter to give reasons why he should not be suspended and he has not responded to that letter,” SA Tourism board chairperson Thozamile Botha said.
This comes after Van der Walt was linked to an agency identified in the controversial Tottenham Hotspur sponsorship proposal that made headlines this week.
According to Botha, the board was not aware of the conflict of interest involving Van der Walt.
SA Tourism proposed a three-year deal with the English Premier League side, worth £42.5 million (about R900 million), starting at the beginning of the 2023/24 season and ending at the end of the 2026/27 season.
READ | Tottenham deal: SA Tourism in hunt to find whistleblower, Sisulu wants CFO gone
In exchange for the whopping investment, the state-owned entity would receive kit branding, interview backdrop branding, match-day advertising, partnership announcements, training camps in South Africa, and free access to tickets and stadium hospitality.
The Daily Maverick first reported that Van der Walt was a director of several companies linked to the WWP Group.
This despite SA Tourism’s acting CEO Themba Khumalo stating at a media briefing that there would be no involvement of an agent or a middleman.
Further details of the deal emerged and revealed that a company called WWP Group would be paid £1.5 million (around R31 million) to ensure that “everything is 100% in place by 1 July 2023 when the season kicks off”.
We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred
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