Third Term Re-elected Sam promises change

| President staves off resurrected allegations of bribery to secure election again

GIDEON Sam was yesterday returned for his third term as president of the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc), heading a board featuring just two new faces.

His only rival, Hajera Kajee, remained deputy president, the second-most powerful position in the executive. But neither Sam nor Kajee will be able to see out their terms to 2020, because the Sascoc constitution requires executive members to step down when they turn 70.

Both Sam and Kajee will become septuagenarians in 2019, which means the next in line for the top job will be vice-president Barry Hendricks, one of the newcomers.

The other is psychologist Debbie Alexander, who follows Sam from triathlon to the Sascoc board, which also includes Mark Alexander, Merrill King, Kobus Marais and Les Williams.

There is room to co-opt up to four board members. IOC members Sam Ramsamy and Anant Singh are ex-officio members.

Hendricks nearly didn’t get to stand at all.

The Gauteng Sports Confederation president was one of 11 candidates who were initially disqualified for not representing national sports federations, but the Sascoc board rejected this.

By the end of the day a victorious Sam, who staved off resurrected allegations of bribery against him, came out promising change — starting with Sascoc’s management structure.

He mooted doing away with the CEO and CFO positions and having a director head up operations. Perhaps he was targeting chief executive Tubby Reddy.

Sam and Reddy have been at odds for some time now, and board insiders say there’s a perception Reddy calls the shots and gets the executive to endorse his decisions.

Sam said he wanted a two-day board meeting “with no management” to map the way forward.

There seemed to be agreement that Sascoc must change its image.

“We need to be more acceptable to the public,” said Hendricks.

“There’s a perception that Sascoc is aloof and not acting in the interests of STILL IN: Hajera Kajee, remained deputy president federations and athletes.”

One of Sascoc’s big failings since its inception in 2004, when it was formed in a merger of the National Olympic Committee of SA, the Commonwealth Games Association and other macro bodies, has been an inability to attract meaningful corporate sponsorships.

Sam won the presidency eight years ago promising to unlock Lotto funding for sport, which he did. Although the flow of that money was stemmed after the 2012 London Games, it still played a crucial role in helping to land some of SA’s 10 medals at the Rio Olympics.

Yet only five of those gongs were achieved by athletes on Sascoc’s Operation Excellence programme.

Wayde van Niekerk and Sunette Viljoen were among those choosing BACK AT THE HELM: Gideon Sam won a third term not to be on the programme, while the rugby sevens team, triathlete Henri Schoeman and Caster Semenya were excluded in the final build-up.

Swimmers Chad Le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh, as well as long-jumper Luvo Manyonga and rowers Lawrence Brittain and Shaun Keeling received assistance.

Kajee said her manifesto was about pushing athletes and easing the controversial strict selection criteria that have been applied at the last two Olympic and Commonwealth Games.

There would have been some federations hurting from having athletes excluded from the Rio Olympic team despite winning spots at African qualifying tournaments, which Sascoc did not recognise.