The column was headlined “Keep Jomo far away from the Bafana bench” and appeared in Sowetan of Friday, October 30, 2009.

Sono has read the article and has had numerous people calling to inquire as to what could have informed the writing of the column and, because the South African Football Association had announced it’s preferred choice of coach more than 10 days before the said column was written. There was therefore no more link to the post to be associated with anybody else, least of all him.

In the correspondence to the Ombudsman and to the publication’s Public Editor, Sono says: ”While I have no problem with people voicing their opinions on matter of national interest as in Bafana Bafana, I take umbrage when a writer becomes personal and insults my intergrity.

The writer of the said article, one Rams Mabote, went on a personal crusade against me and for reasons best known by him.

I believe it is a well-known fact that the South African Football association (Safa) appointed Carlos Alberto Parreira as head coach of the national football team, Bafana Bafana, and announced that on Friday, 23 October 2009. The allegations against me in the column are both unfounded and malicious to say the least and I would like to question the said writer’s motive behind his vitriol.

The following are stated as fact by Mabote:

* That in the debate over the need for a foreign or local coach for Bafana Bafana, I (Jomo Sono) raised my hand; * After being appointed a technical assessor by Safa, not only did I write Joel Santana’s epitaph and obituary but that I went on to I am the man for his job;

* That I have an overinflated view of myself and my phantom achievements;

* That I have an abysmal record as a national coach;

* He goes on about what he claims are my failures and closes his diatribe by saying that if there is a better coach locally than Parreira that person should be given the job but that person is not, cannot and will not be Jomo Sono.

What is puzzling here is that this opinion comes two weeks after Parreira had been announced as coach. The publication had not at any time leading up to that decision, come to me on my views or opinion about that.

As for my raising my hand, I do not understand why anyone can question people who respond to a national call. I am a South African and proudly so that is why I will alsways availmyself when the nation calls for my expertise in this game which is garnered over 40 years of top flight play, coaching and administration.

All the above has caused untold harm to my person and I have had people calling me to ask what it is I had done to this person for him to write such about me. My family has also suffered as a result of this.

I thus had no alternative but to write about how aggrieved I am at such baseless and insulting claims, some of which are clearly unresearched and show a lack of basic facts and knowledge about me and local football.”

Sono also points out that the writer in question has a long history of failures himself as evidence by his having been fired from almost every media job he has been involved in at various publications. All these are contained in the issues raised and Sono questions how anyone with a track record like that would be allowed precious space in a respectable publication like Sowetan to go on personal attacks that are clearly lacking in basic facts that are there in the public domain.

“Who actually is a failure here?” he asks rethorically.

“I am not going to allow such unwarranted attacks on my person, especially from people who clearly have an agenda to pursue. Even ablind man can see through this man and his column. It is indeed a sad day for a newspaper like Sowetan, which has been a vanguard of our football struggle to stoop so low as to forget the basics of the trade in checking on facts before publication. That column was and is a distortion of facts and that has to be corrected,” said Sono.

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