Sascoc CEO Tubby Reddy on Tuesday dismissed out of hand allegations that the country’s Olympic governing body had in any way ignored certain cities in terms of the possible hosting of the 2020 Olympic Games.
Reddy was reacting to weekend reports that the City of Cape Town had never received a formal deadline for submission of its bid and that Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth had never been invited to bid by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc).
“The notion that Sascoc messed up Cape Town’s Olympic bid is very far from the truth and, in fact, is rather an attempt from some to hide their own inefficiency,” Reddy said in a statement.
The process of submitting bids was not a complicated one.
Sascoc issued letters of invitation to the mayor’s office of the cities of Durban, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg and Cape Town.
‘Ironic’
In these letters, Sascoc requested them to submit a response by the end of July, declaring their intention to bid.
“Subsequent to that invitation we were called by a Karen Haskell from the office of the city of Cape Town to say that they have not received the letter of invitation,” he said.
This letter was resent to the exact same email address that was used the first time and the same Karen Haskell confirmed receipt of the letter the second time round.
“By the stage of the Sascoc board meeting in Bloemfontein on September 3 2010, we had received only one letter of intent, which was received from the mayor of the city of Durban.”
This letter was then tabled at the Sascoc board meeting and the city of Durban was endorsed as the only applicant.
“On Monday September 13 a journalist from the Cape Argus called me and said that she had got an indication from the office of the mayor of Cape Town that they had sent a letter of intent to Sascoc already.
“I said to her that this was most certainly untrue. In fact it is ironic that on Thursday, September 16, I received an email from Keith Nicol from the office of the mayor of Cape Town on their intent to bid.
“Thus it is clear that Sascoc has followed due process in the bidding process and cannot be held accountable for any misunderstanding, especially on the part of the City of Cape Town,” Reddy said. — Sapa