Infighting puts karate under siege
Unhappy athletes haul associations to court
AT a time when karate is being considered an Olympic sport, infighting in the country’s karate associations is threatening to destroy the sport in South Africa.
The extent of the wrangling is revealed in papers filed in the High Court in Johannesburg by Karate Boland, a voluntary sports association, whose relationship with Karate South Africa, the sport’s national governing body, forms the subject of the dispute.
Other applicants include five disgruntled Karate Boland exponents who claim their lifelong dream of competing in last year’s World Karate Federation championships in Paris was destroyed because of the spat between the two bodies.
The five have hauled administrator Mahomed Mubarak, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) and Karate SA to court in what they claim is a last-resort attempt to resolve the matter.
The dispute came to a head after Mubarak was appointed administrator of Karate SA in 2011 after allegations of maladministration and a lack of governance in the body.
The court papers state that, at the time, Karate SA “was facing numerous internal problems”, which led to three former executive committee members being investigated by the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks).
Mubarak is no stranger to the sporting world. He has served the South African Football Association at national executive level for 10 years and was a director of the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
He is also chairman of Sascoc’s transformation, ethics and dispute resolution commis- sion. Yet his appointment as administrator was questioned as he, in his own words, is not a “karate man”.
Karate Boland and the unhappy athletes also have an issue with several decisions he made since then, with the backing of Sascoc and Karate SA. These were made at an October 2012 meeting. They are asking the court to set them aside.
They allege these decisions include changing the Karate SA constitution, and that there was a last-minute irregularity concerning the national squad selected for the 2012 world championships. They claim that the latter decision effectively replaced the five applicant athletes with others from a “dissident” group.
In addition, they say that, in retaliation for launching the court action, Karate Boland has now been disbanded and deemed “illegal”, leaving “some of the best champions from the Western Cape” at home and unable to compete professionally.
However, Mubarak, Sascoc and Karate SA have denied the allegations. They claim a proper procedure was followed to select the team by a technical board.
In court papers Mubarak claims that the applicants objected to the October meeting only after it was held.
“I suspect this was as a consequence of the team having been picked by the technical board, which did not sit well with the applicants…. [The] applicants were not rightfully selected as part of the South African national team that participated in and represented South Africa in France in November 2012,” he says.
He has also called for mediation or arbitration, rather than court action, as required by Karate SA’s constitution.
The attorney representing Mubarak, Sascoc and Karate SA told the Sunday Times that the court matter had been postponed the last time it came before court and could not be heard again until at least the last week in July.
One of the affected karate exponents, John Solomon, had been “excited” to represent his country but said that he discovered a month before the championships that he had been “replaced”.
Solomon, who has been competing in karate for 24 years, said: “We are sitting with people … five-time national champions, who will not get a chance to compete at any upcoming championships because Karate SA and Sascoc say that we are not recognised.
“I hope that this will never happen to anyone again. The world of karate is chaotic at the moment; there are kids who have the potential to compete but cannot,” said Solomon.