Clean your house, Sascoc

The core concern of any sports federation should be the athletes.

However, the alleged sexual harassment row that has dogged the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) over the past few days is just not sport.

The sex-pest claims against Sascoc chief executive Tubby Reddy should be investigated and anyone found to be in the wrong must be removed.

Reddy told Sowetan this week that the allegations were a plot to fire him, fingering his president Gideon Sam as being behind the move, but Reddy maintained that he could prove that it was all orchestrated.

What worried us though is that Reddy claimed this was not the first time, that there were attempts to oust him.

Sweeping serious matters under the carpet won’t help our sport as these are the same administrators who should be transparent while taking care of athletes.

It also begs the question why such serious claims surface at the time when Sascoc was deliberating the composition of its executive that has already violated the organisation’s own constitution by exceeding the required quota of the board.

We expect Sascoc to uphold the values of good governance given their stature as an Olympic governing body that oversees 70 national sport federations.

We welcome the board’s resolution this week to appoint an independent panel to investigate this matter and that they also escalated the allegations against Reddy to the office of Sports Minister Thulas Nxesi.

At the end of the day, it is incumbent on Sascoc to clean its house.