Athletics South Africa (ASA) administrator Ray Mali has hit back at athletes and former ASA interim board members who have slammed South Africa’s Olympic body for delaying their exit from the federation.
A South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) team, headed by Mali, was sent in to clean up ASA in November last year and given a six-month deadline to have a new board in place.
Last month, however, that deadline was extended until August and athletics administrators and athletes have hit out at the Olympic body for taking their time in handing the federation back to those involved directly in the sport.
“I have no intention of staying at ASA,” Mali said. “I want to finish my job and get out, but there are certain processes that need to be followed and we don’t want to leave any stone unturned.
“When we came here we said we would resolve all the issues before a new board would be elected.
“We can’t elect a new board until the disciplinary process for the suspended members is completed. What if the guys are found not guilty? What then? We have to finish this process first.”
Mali said all of ASA’s provincial members and the entire interim board had agreed to extend elections until August.
“At the South African Athletics Championships [in Durban last month] I held a briefing in the VIP marquee tent to discuss the matter with the board members, and I later phoned those who were not in attendance,” Mali said.
“Then on the 27th of March we held a general council meeting with all 17 provinces and six associate members, and everyone was in agreement that the elections should be extended until the pending completion of the investigation into the suspended administration.”
Board members resign
Hendrick Ramaala, an active athlete and former New York marathon winner, became the second interim board member to resign last week, following the resignation of James Evans in January.
Citing one of his reasons for leaving, Ramaala told the Sunday Times the elections for a new regime had been postponed from mid-May to “some time in August”.
Evans said in an e-mail he feared Mali and his Sascoc team would end up running the federation “for years to come without ever having been elected”.
“It should not be forgotten that [ASA president] Leonard Chuene and his board were suspended for bringing the sport into disrepute.
“Nearly six months later, they have still not been charged with those offences,” Evans said.
“It should also not be forgotten that Mr Chuene and his board had lost political control of the sport, as only four members have not resigned and they cannot form a quorum. As such new elections were always inevitable, regardless of Sascoc’s intervention.”
A group calling themselves “concerned South African athletes” released a statement last week backing Ramaala’s resignation, adding the ASA administrators had not given the sport’s stakeholders sufficient reasons for extending the stay of the interim board.
“We therefore cannot and do not recognise the legality or the legitimacy of the current, so called ‘interim board’,” the statement read.
The “concerned athletes” demanded that “the current administration and ‘interim board’ call for a council meeting with all stakeholders by the end of May 2010 to decide on a date for proper elections and so they can inform us when the current administration will leave the ASA office.” — Sapa