Banele Sindani: Athletics chief with a fiery track record
1955-2015
BANELE Sindani, who was murdered by robbers at his home in Ruimsig, Johannesburg, this week, held two of the top administrative sport posts in South Africa, with varying degrees of controversy.
He became CEO of Athletics South Africa when the federation was at its zenith, with an annual turnover of more than R40-million.
For track and field alone there were two sponsors. One was with the premier Engen Series where top international runners were brought out to compete against South Africa’s best.
They included American legend Michael Johnson, Trinidad and Tobago star Ato Boldon and American Marion Jones, who was later jailed in a drugs scandal.
But under Sindani and president Leonard Chuene, in the early 2000s, the federation lost the sponsorships from Engen and Absa, which funded a local series of meets. In 2002, an auditor found that R2-million had been stolen from Athletics SA by a clerk working there at the time, and that Sindani had given himself a loan of nearly R174 000 without the approval of the board.
Chuene, who, according to Athletics SA’s constitution, was a nonexecutive president, was earning a salary and in 2004 his package totalled almost R400 000, which included medical aid.
Sindani would have known this, yet in 2003 he criticised Sam Ramsamy, president of the National Olympic Committee of South Africa at the time, for earning a salary — something that was not outlawed in that body’s constitution.
Sindani stood up during a Nocsa AGM in dramatic fashion, with hand on forehead to convey his shock at the disclosure that Ramsamy was a paid president.
Sindani went on to become the first CEO appointed to the newly created South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee in 2005, the body being the merger of organisations such as Nocsa, the Commonwealth Games Association and the government’s Sports Commission.
On an annual R1.9-million package, Sindani failed to land sponsors for the cash-strapped umbrella body, and he was retrenched little more than a year later.
Wanting his Athletics SA post back, he went to war against Chuene for refusing his request.
The battle spilt over into the Athletics SA boardroom, with Sindani trying to topple Chuene by exposing an affair the federation’s president was having with his personal assistant.
Sports minister Makhenkesi Stofile eventually intervened.
The feud ended and Chuene employed Sindani as a consultant for almost R1.8-million, an amount that was later described as excessive by auditors who investigated the collapsed athletics empire.
Even with turnover of R42-million in 2007, Athletics SA’s deficit had grown to nearly R1million, with administration costs alone rising from R7.9million to R10.5-million in one year.
By the time Chuene was ousted in late 2009, the federation was effectively bankrupt, and it has been on the brink ever since.
Sindani disappeared from the mainstream until resurfacing in a fight over the Soweto Marathon in 2013. Representing the Soweto Marathon Trust, he wanted the event to be organised by his body, instead of Athletics SA, then under the presidency of James Evans.
In an e-mail that was said to have caused a potential sponsor to pull out, Sindani wrote: “They [race organisers] will go into Soweto, but they won’t come out. When it comes to athletics, Soweto is the exclusive domain of Soweto athletics clubs, and nobody else’s. We are ready to lay down our lives if needs be, to protect our domain . . . this is not a threat, it’s just a friendly warning.” The race was cancelled that year. As a student, Sindani was expelled from university on three separate occasions in the ’70s and ’80s for protesting. The first time was in his first year as a pharmacy student at the University of the North in Polokwane in 1974, when he showed his support for Mozambique’s ruling party, Frelimo.
He returned the following year to complete his first year, but in 1976 he was involved in the education protests and was detained and then expelled.
On the third occasion, while he was studying for a BCom at Fort Hare in 1982, he was detained and expelled, again after a protest.
Sindani, who said he spent most of his time working as a computer programmer, got into sports administration after joining the ANC-aligned National Sports Council before 1990. He was involved in unity talks. Sindani could be brutal, but athletes this week also remembered an approachable CEO. “He would have meetings with the athletes and he could make us feel as if we’d played a role,” said former sprinter Mathew Quinn. “He always had an open door.”
Even Ramsamy spoke highly of Sindani, praising him for his knowledge of athletics and courage to fight for what he believed in.
Sindani is survived by his wife, Cynthia, and six children. — David Isaacson
When it comes to athletics, Soweto is the exclusive domain of Soweto athletics clubs, and nobody else
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