ASA row costs local athletes R3.4m in assistance from Sascoc
SOUTH Africa’s athletes will have lost up to R3.4-million in aid by the time they limp into Moscow for the world championships in August.
That is how much the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) says they had earmarked to assist the athletes who had qualified.
That was when Sascoc was still in charge of Athletics SA (ASA), having stepped in to sort out what it called governance issues.
But when Sascoc was forced by the IAAF, the world governing body for athletics, to return control of the federation to combative president James Evans, it replied by suspending ASA.
The athletes were the first casualties — 11 immediately lost access to Sascoc’s Operation Excellence funding, such as 110m hurdler Lehann Fourie, and then more than 20 were omitted from the SA team for the World Student Games, which starts on Saturday.
Athletes will continue to be excluded from all SA’s multi-sport teams as long as the suspension lasts, although they can participate at specific athletics events like the world championships.
In a bid to break the deadlock, sports minister Fikile Mbalula is to meet Evans tomorrow and the Sascoc board during the week.
Sascoc has put several federations into administration since 2009, most memorably Leonard Chuene’s ASA four years ago.
The IAAF didn’t object to Sascoc’s action then, so why are they standing behind Evans now? The difference, perhaps, is that Chuene had embarrassed the IAAF over the Caster Semenya gender row, and after that they were happy to see him go.
Until then Chuene had enjoyed their full support; in 2008 the IAAF backed him to the hilt when the
Evans has yet to accept responsibility for some failures, like not paying prize money owed to road runners and salaries to staff
allegations of poor governance first surfaced. Vague claims against Evans arose in March when members of his board, led by vice-president Hendrick Ramaala, tried to impeach him.
Sascoc CEO Tubby Reddy this week added some meat to those accusations, saying Evans had doubledipped into ASA’s purse by claiming expenses as well as a R20 000 monthly stipend which had not been approved by ASA’s general assembly nor the board. Furthermore:
On November 8, 2012 Evans allegedly told ASA’s finance manager to pay a claim of more than R18 000 because “I am behind on my rent”; and
On December 10, 2012 Evans told the finance manager ASA couldn’t afford to pay staff bonuses, yet three days later allegedly demanded he be paid more than R27 000.
Evans initially called these “outright lies”, but he has since declined to comment further.
Evans is a former advocate with seemingly little appetite for people who think differently to him. He has frequently denounced his critics as incompetent, and isn’t shy to threaten legal action or even lay charges against them.
He has battled Athletics SA staff and officials.
Last year he laid a noise complaint against Two Oceans Marathon organisers. Evans, who lives near the start line, was apparently the only resident to lay such a charge.
He declined to entertain top local coaches who had called for the appointment of a national coach to develop the sport.
Evans has yet to accept responsibility for some of ASA’s failures, like not paying prize money owed to road runners, and salaries to staff.
ASA’s employees this week wrote to the board asking for leadership, complaining they don’t even know who to report to.
The whole situation is a mess. Is it because Evans was incompetent and corrupt? Did Sascoc abuse its powers? Should the IAAF have stayed out of it? The answer, surely, does not include punishing the athletes.