The annual general meeting of the SA Football Association probably revealed less about football and more about the eccentricities of public life in South Africa. The media were not allowed to attend and, if eyewitness reports were accurate, no fewer than 120 police officers were on duty.
Even if it is legally able to do so, what kind of sports body bars the media from its AGM? With "transparency" the popular buzzword, you would think the national federation of South Africa's most popular sport would at least make a pretense to play along.
Barring the media suggests that soccer has something to hide. One can't imagine what that could be, other than maybe some heated verbal exchanges, which happen anyway in forums of this kind.
But are we surprised? Let's face it, the endemic paranoia in SA soccer is such that, even when it doesn't have something to hide, it will surely find something.
And how about 120 police officers? Were they all regular cops or were some of them conventional security personnel at a conference facility? If extra security had to be rolled in for the occasion, as reports suggested, what on earth goes down when our top football administrators meet?
Then again, if delegates attending a mere soccer meeting do not really run any risk to life and limb, someone will surely start a rumour of lurking dangers.
So what really happened at this AGM? Newspaper headlines appeared yesterday claiming that SA soccer was "in turmoil" and that the meeting had been a "circus".
In some respects, you could say the media were merely guessing because, remember, they didn't actually get through the front door.
On the face of it, the meeting seemed to achieve what it set out to do. It elected its new office-bearers which, by all accounts, was its main purpose. There is a new soccer president and new vice-presidents. That doesn't sound like an organisation in turmoil.
But, in keeping with the eccentricities of public life in contemporary South Africa, there is always a subplot - and that's why the media were there and that's probably why they were kept out.
This subplot centred on the presidential election in which there were three candidates but only two counted. These were Irvin Khoza and Danny Jordaan, who we are led to believe are bitter enemies somehow managing to occupy the top two positions on a committee organising the 2010 World Cup.
Both were nominated as the new president but both withdrew from the ballot midway through the proceedings. This merely allowed the third candidate, Kirsten Nematandani, to win the ticket unopposed, which is the kind of thing that happens in such circumstances.
Is this turmoil? Was it a circus?
Of course, it was, but that's nothing new.