Despite agreeing to a new four-year deal with Safa, the SABC has confirmed that the public broadcaster will not be broadcasting every Bafana Bafana match.

The cash-strapped public broadcaster had battled to agree on a new deal with the South African Football Association on the broadcast rights for Bafana matches, but on Saturday it was revealed that a new four-year deal was struck.

SABC may have televised South Africa’s Nelson Mandela Challenge match against Mali over the weekend, but SABC sport programmes manager Ruby Kandier, speaking to the broadcaster’s football presenter Thomas Mlambo on Sunday, revealed that the new deal is not exactly like the one before.

‘Basically what we’ve done, we won’t be doing as much as we’ve done in the past,’ she said.

‘But at least we are showing the Afcon qualifiers, some friendlies, the Nelson Mandela Challenge … we will be showing as much as we possibly can, but obviously within the constraints of the deal.

‘I think it’s an important matter that we have achieved. It’s been more than a year that we haven’t been able to show any of our national teams, and I think after months and months of talking, negotiating, we’ve finally managed to broker a four-year deal which will bring to South African audiences our national teams of men and women, some of our domestic leagues and most importantly, I think we’ll be able to showcase development soccer.

‘We’ve got the national women’s league and for us that’s a major accomplishment. So on behalf of the SABC board and Exco, we are very privileged to have been able to do this.’

Speaking to KickOff.com Safa acting CEO Russel Paul further revealed that the new deal permits only six games to be televised by the Auckland Park-based station.

‘It’s six matches per annum. So everything you see there it’s per annum. Ja, there’s a possibility [of SABC not televising some matches] but I mean it’s probably not likely. Those are the minimum games that you will see,’ said Paul.

‘It’s been ongoing for a long time and we finally signed everything on Saturday. We’ve been working on it for a couple of months now. There’s nothing to worry about, the games will be seen on TV,’ he concluded.