Athletics fails to beat the clock
LIKE the classroom dunce who forgot to submit his homework, Athletics South Africa (ASA) this week copped a ban from bidding for international events largely because they failed to submit information timeously and accurately.
The Eminent Persons Group (EPG) report on transformation released this week was particularly scathing on the athletics governing body, which was found to have submitted incomplete and unreliable data in key areas.
Moreover, their demographic status transformation was poor, prompting Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula to slap them — along with SA Rugby, Cricket South Africa and Netball SA — with the sanction.
The EPG’s Willie Basson said leadership and power wrangles in the 2014/15 year under review contributed to their poor performance.
“Athletics has had a lot of governance problems in recent years but I think there’s a degree of stability now with the current leadership,” said Basson.
“Their poor performance is a direct consequence of the structures they’ve got in place to collect the information, analyse and act on it.
“The governance turmoil has prevented athletics from exploiting and improving on their demographic profiles and thus they have not achieved most of their own targets, but the potential is there.
“If you look at the guys doing well in the 100m and 200m sprints, the talent is there. Guys like Wayde van Niekerk and Anaso [Jobodwana].”
Of the legible data, ASA were found to have 50% generic black athletes in their senior male teams and only 21% in their senior female teams. The target was 60%.
They also fell short in terms of black male (59%) and female coaches (41%).
They achieved their target with their fulltime staff, management and board level, which were transformed.
However, ASA couldn’t at the time provide the EPG with the number of schools and clubs that played the code in each province, an indictment on its leaders that Basson said was “like a newspaper not knowing who their readers are, where they are or where their papers are being sold.
“For ASA not to know or not to have sufficient information on the number of schools participatiing in their codes is unacceptable. How can you plan without that information? If there isn’t an open pipeline feeding upwards from a school and club level towards age groups, they will have a challenge getting representative teams.
“ASA’s feeder channel from schools to junior and senior level is not of the same quality as codes like rugby and cricket and not as well thought out. Why is that? It’s clearly the leadership struggles.
“The eye was taken off the ball. They didn’t apply themselves to the fundamentals of their sporting code.”
ASA president Aleck Skhosana, who met the sports ministry on Thursday to get a better understanding of Mbalula’s sanction, admitted there were weaknesses his federation was working on.
“We’ve looked at the report and have identified the areas of weakness,” he said.
“We are also working on the 2016/17 report, which we promise will be stronger and we will be able to score the highest marks on that.
“There are factors that will help us improve, like funding and developing skills.”