Athletes in some sports deserve far better from the officials who supposedly serve them

19 Dec 2024

If I had one wish this festive season it would be for South African sport to be rid of hopeless and corrupt officials.

In a country with many social problems, sport is the one thing that binds, rather than divides us. Thanks to a combination of dedicated sportspeople, coaches, teammates, friends and family, among others, our sports stars continue to deliver. Often against extreme odds.

Unfortunately, many of South Africa’s sports administrators and associations are not in the same league as athletes.

Financial mismanagement, personal gain and petty politics trump good corporate governance in a variety of sports, and in several ways.

The South African sports sector appears to be a microcosm of the patronage and looting we see at national government level on an almost daily basis.

Running any organisation comes with challenges that cannot be avoided and sometimes errors occur. Honest mistakes, though, are tolerable if a federation functions with the best interests of the athletes and the sporting discipline as its guiding principle.

No one expects perfection all the time, and many of the associations that run sports bodies in this country are staffed by dedicated amateurs who do their best.

Unfortunately, there is also a layer of incompetence, greed, ego and probably corruption in some sports, where administrators believe themselves to be the main attraction.

I’ve still never found a fan who would pay to watch an administrator do anything. For the best managers, the rewards will come from the success of their sportspeople.

Sadly, that attitude is not prevalent at some federations.

Sink or swim?

If Minister of Sport Gayton McKenzie is serious about improving South African sport, he could start by taking a closer look at Swimming SA (SSA).

My colleague Keanan Hemmonsbey has done some incredible investigative work, revealing a worrying and growing catalogue of problems at SSA.

Athletes in swimming, water polo and artistic swimming that fall under SSA, are summarily suspended, or brought on disciplinary charges if they question the leadership under president Alan Fritz and CEO Shaun Adriaanse.

Artistic swimming pair Jessica Hayes-Hill and Laura Strugnell won their appeal against SSA after being sanctioned, withdrawn and sent home from the World Championships in Doha earlier this year.

Hayes-Hill and Strugnell were set to participate as a duet in artistic swimming at the 2024 World Championships in February. A top 20 showing in Doha would have secured a spot for South Africa at the Paris Olympic Games.

However, the day before the event began, the pair were called to a disciplinary hearing by the three-member artistic swimming management team in Doha.

The team management charged the pair with “deceitful actioning of training protocol without management approval”. These trumped-up charges were found to be unlawful in court several months later.

The two artistic swimmers are still in a legal battle with SSA, seeking more than R7-million in damages in court. Even if they win, their Olympic dreams remain dashed.

SSA summarily withdrew the SA men’s and women’s water polo teams from the Paris Olympics despite both having qualified. Neither side had a chance of winning a medal, but that was not the point.

They had qualified and heard about their withdrawal on social media. There was no formal communication from SSA.

Later in the year, SSA announced that its water polo teams for the Division 2 World Cup would be selected from players representing provinces who registered for the SA Nationals in March. The only problem? The SA Nationals were not held and only three of the 10 provinces registered.

You can’t make this up.

There is so much more from the SSA catalogue of incompetence that it could already fill a book.

SSA held elections this year and many office bearers were re-elected for a fourth consecutive term or more, in violation of the body’s constitution. President Fritz is serving a sixth consecutive term.

Even if SSA was the best-run sporting body on the planet, there would be legitimate scrutiny of officials serving for more than 20 years.

The fact that it’s a shambles where athletes survive, and in a few cases, thrive, in spite of their “leadership”, should mean that Minister McKenzie should demand a commission of inquiry into SSA.

His predecessor Nathi Mthethwa effectively disbanded the Cricket South Africa (CSA) board in 2020 (officially they “stepped down”) and appointed an interim board. That interim board then commissioned a forensic audit into CSA and the upshot was a new board.

This week I spoke to a highly placed cricket insider who said that CSA had never been in a better state at boardroom level, although there are still some serious issues with some “dysfunctional” provincial unions.

The point is, it is within McKenzie’s ambit to sack the SSA board. He needs to show some backbone and at the very least look into the problems.

And just to be clear; every story Daily Maverick has written about SSA has been accompanied by the right of reply. And every time we have been ignored.

That’s SSA’s right, but it won’t stop Daily Maverick from digging and asking questions.

Safa money

The South African Football Association (Safa) has also been a serial offender over the years.

Safa president Danny Jordaan was arrested this year on charges of fraud and theft.

The case will continue in the new year and will certainly be one of the big news stories of 2025.

The State alleges that Jordaan “acquired protection services worth over R40,000, purported to be for Safa, from Badger Security, during the Safa 2018 elective congress, whilst these protection services were allegedly exclusively rendered to him”.

Furthermore, it alleges that Jordaan, on behalf of Safa, illegally signed off a service level agreement with Grit Communications in December 2017. The State says this was peculiar as Safa already had an internal public relations company.

While Jordaan’s time in court has been likely for some time, the problems at Safa were highlighted in December when it needed a bailout to pay wages.

Safa needed a R5-million “advance” on its annual government grant to cover wage bills for South African men’s and women’s national team players.

McKenzie, who approved the advance, backtracked this week after criticism for bailing out Safa, which should be running its affairs more professionally.

McKenzie has demanded a report from Safa. Again, if he feels there has been a governance failure, he could implement a commission of inquiry.

Sascoc and others

The South African Rugby Union (Saru) and CSA, as stated earlier, are being well managed with the best interests of their athletes at the forefront of their agendas.

While Saru failed to secure an equity sale, that failure was actually a victory for good corporate governance.

After a lengthy due diligence process, Saru’s members voted against the sale of a 20% stake in the organisation for R1.3-billion.

Read more: Back to the drawing board for Saru as members vote against selling Springbok stake

Of course there was politicking and lobbying from both sides of the deal, but central to the decision was trying to do the best for Saru, and therefore for rugby players.

In the coming year, the role of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) needs to be clearer and more transparent.

Sascoc is the umbrella body under which SA sports federations fall and should, in theory, be at the very least sniffing around the numerous media reports about inefficiency in sporting governance at federations such as SSA.

Sascoc has the power to suspend federations and office-bearers but whether it has the capacity, but mostly the political will, to take on its own federations is debatable.

President Barry Hendricks was voted in for a new term in August, and while Sascoc has shown signs of better management, it needs to be stronger on miscreant sporting federations. DM

Categories:

Tags:

DM is much better if you are signed in...

South Africa

Sink or swim?

Safa money

Sascoc and others