ASA’s Skhosana says nothing will stand in his way for SASCOC presidency

An explosive and potentially bruising war is brewing between the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) and its affiliate Athletics South Africa (ASA).

This is over the rejection of ASA president Aleck Skhosana to stand for the Sascoc presidency.

Skhosana told a media briefing at Athletics House in Houghton Estate that he ‘smells a rat’ following a decision of what he described as a ‘contaminated’ board of Sascoc to bar him from standing for the presidency of the troubled national sports body.

Skhosana, who has had a turbulent relationship with Sascoc as a board member since 2016, is hoping to stand for the election for the presidency on 28 March following the expiry of the tenure of the current board and vowed to leave no stone unturned in his quest to be allowed to stand.

Skhosana was nominated by the athletics body and all the paperwork and requirements were completed and dispatched to Sascoc. The documents apparently met all the stipulated requirements and were approved, but a few days down the line Sascoc claimed one document relating to his endorsement as a member of good standing at ASA was not provided.

“We hand-delivered all the documents and whoever received them at Sascoc ticked all the boxes of a checklist provided,” he claimed. “To say one document is missing and hence I am not eligible to stand for the presidency is nothing but foul play from people hell-bent on slamming the door in our faces.”

Numerous letters of correspondence from ASA lawyers to Sascoc have gone unanswered and lawyer Dev Maharaj said they had no option but to seek the services of an independent dispute resolution body as provided for under the Sascoc constitution.

“We’re currently engaging with Sascoc in a friendly manner but if all that fails our client will have no option but to take the matter beyond Sascoc,” said Maharaj. “Our client has been prejudiced and is currently in limbo, and we shall take all the steps necessary to ensure his nomination is reinstated and that he runs for the presidency.”

Skhosana said ASA had since resent a copy of the so-called missing document. “The election of office bearers for sports bodies should be free, fair and transparent without any undue processes. Sascoc is a duly constituted body that needs to be cleaned to rid it of the bad elements and bring in new blood with the interests of sports at heart,” he added.

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Asked whether he would still stand for election, Skhosana replied, “I am unstoppable, unfortunately. Those manipulating the process at Sascoc are well known but I am not ready to talk now.”

Sascoc acting CEO Ravi Govender has denied any shenanigans around the manipulation of the process on their part of Sascoc and said the process was independent of Sascoc as it was run by independent auditors.

“My job is to ensure the process is independent, fair and transparent and I want to believe I am doing just that. No one will be victimised and certainly not Mr Skhosana and anybody else for that matter for as long as I am in charge,” Govender said.

Govender said he had advised ASA to resubmit the missing document while at the same time provide the necessary proof that it had been [earlier] submitted. “If ASA has since done so, I am due to hopefully receive that information from the auditors today [12 March] and then we can take the process from there,” he added.

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