Warning bells Stop your nonsense or face Olympic expulsion
● The Olympic and Paralympic mother bodies have warned SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) board members to halt legal action against federations — or else.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Paralympic Committee (IPC) didn’t spell out what they meant by the “further measures” they threatened to take, but local sports insiders were not ruling out expulsion from next year’s Tokyo Games.
Arbitration
The last straw was the decision by five board members to take to arbitration 47 sports bodies that voted at last month’s special general meeting (SGM) to reinstate Sascoc’s suspended acting president Barry Hendricks and end disciplinary action against him.
The board had given the federations until this past Friday to serve a notice of opposition, but instead they got the strongly worded joint missive by the IOC and IPC.
The board argued the Sascoc general assembly had violated the body’s constitution at the SGM, claiming the vote on Hendricks had not been included on the official agenda sent out by Sascoc.
That item was on a second agenda issued by Sam Ramsamy, appointed by the IOC and IPC to facilitate overdue Sascoc elections, which will be held at the Sandton convention centre on November 7.
The IOC and IPC stood by Sam. “As expressly mentioned in the Sascoc constitution, the general assembly is the supreme decision-making body of Sascoc, and the board is therefore accountable to the general assembly,” they wrote.
Democratic decisions
“Consequently, this legal action has no objective reason to be pursued, and we are calling upon all members of Sascoc to act responsibly and in good faith, and simply respect and implement the sovereign and democratic decisions of the general assembly.”
The mother bodies said they hoped the board members would withdraw their “parallel action aimed at disrupting this [election] process ... failing which the IOC and IPC will reserve the right to take further measures”.
The board’s move against the general assembly also drew disapproval from the wider sports community, with no fewer than 55 federations listed as opponents in a letter sent out by Canoeing SA on Friday. They included the SA Sports Association for Physically Disabled, the home of Sascoc board member Kobus Marais.
Delegates at the SGM had also instructed the board to continue with its administrative roles, and not to commit to anything new. But the board’s legal papers show that six days later they extended the rolling month-by-month contract of acting CEO Ravi Govender until after the Paralympics next year.
The list of candidates will be ready next Sunday.