I didn’t rape singer Ferguson ―Jordaan

South Africa’s football boss Danny Jordaan, 66, has broken his silence to deny raping singer and ex-MP Jennifer Ferguson nearly 24 years ago.

Mr Jordaan rejected Mrs Ferguson’s offer of mediation, saying the accusations must be dealt with in a court of law, his lawyer said.

Ms Ferguson alleges Mr Jordaan “overpowered” her and raped her in a hotel in Port Elizabeth city in 1994.

She said she was inspired to speak out by the #MeToo campaign on social media.

Ms Ferguson said the attack took place when she was “high and happy” following her unexpected nomination by Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) party to serve in South Africa’s first democratically elected parliament in 1994.

Now living in Sweden with her husband, Ms Ferguson said she wanted prominent South African cleric Paul Verryn to broker “mediation” between her and Mr Jordaan to achieve “restorative justice”.

Mr Jordaan, however, rejected mediation, as it could be perceived as a “cover-up” with “one law for the powerful and another for the masses”, his lawyer, Mamodupi Mohlala-Mulaudzi, said in a statement, adding her client had not commented up to now because of his “empathy with victims of gender-based violence”.

Mr Jordaan, she continued, was innocent, and believed that the singer’s allegations could “only be ventilated in a court of law, where the rights of all parties are protected”.

In response, Ms Ferguson said she was “preparing for a course of action, the nature of which I will be disclosing in the near future”.