The governance crackdowns have already swept through the highest levels of South African sport. At the top level, Hendricks remains sidelined pending a formal judicial review following an independent probe led by retired Judge Basheer Waglay.
Lower down, the High Court recently dismissed an urgent application by Karate South Africa president Sonny Pillay and two board members to overturn their suspensions, hitting them with a punitive legal costs order.
Meanwhile, Swimming South Africa president Alan Fritz and CEO Shaun Adriaanse face provisional suspensions over power abuse and document falsification allegations, while Athletics South Africa president James Moloi remains suspended following a forensic investigation into alleged credit card irregularities.
With Basketball SA and the Air Sports Federation of South Africa also facing pending structural reviews, the administrative landscape is undergoing an unprecedented purge.
SASCOC president Barry Hendricks has been suspended and faces an internal judicial probe following a preliminary finding by retired Judge Basheer Waglay.
“I am responsible for the national federations as part of my portfolio, and I can honestly say that there are going to be a few more coming out in the next few weeks,” Pople revealed at the launch a multipurpose court at a Chatsworth, Durban school on Tuesday.
“Before, it probably would have been a good fight and nothing would have been done. This is us saying good governance must happen, it’s got to stop. We will work with these federations, but we have to take the knocks as a sector, move forward, and put the focus back on the athletes rather than boardroom squabbles.”
Olympic host city decision set for October
Pople emphasized that cleaning up sports governance is a necessary prerequisite for South Africa’s international hosting ambitions.
Following government signals regarding a historic African bid for the 2036 or 2040 Games, Pople disclosed that Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie is expected to announce the designated South African host city by the end of October.
However, Pople stressed that long-term high-performance planning must match hosting ambitions.
“The minister announced that he will announce the candidate host city by the end of October,” Pople said.
“You’ve got to clean up your house long before then – take the administration (squabbles) out and put sport back in the forefront. Most of the high-performance plans for LA 2028 were locked in four to six years ago. While outlier talents will emerge, our true institutional planning across federations is already building toward 2032 and 2036.”
Ending ‘self-funding’ crisis for LA 2028
Beyond administrative cleanups and hosting bids, Pople highlighted a systemic crisis facing South African sport: the financial burden placed on elite athletes forced to self-fund or crowdfund their international qualification pathways.
With some Olympic qualification cycles costing individual athletes upwards of R250 000 to R300 000 annually in international travel, Pople disclosed that Sascoc is preparing to launch a new independent foundation to secure private sector backing and diversify away from total reliance on National Lotteries funding and government grants.
“No athlete should pay for themselves to go overseas to compete for South Africa, and sadly that has become the norm,” Pople said. “It is not sustainable. We cannot just rely on government funding or the lotteries.
“Corporates hear ‘crisis’ and don’t want to be involved, so we have to fix the governance to bring corporate support back. We will be launching a foundation soon to address this.”
Tatjana Smith is making a return to competitive swimming with her sights firmly set on the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Tatjana Smith’s comeback leads charge
Despite boardroom turbulence, Pople pointed to bright spots on the field of play, praising the competitive comeback of Olympic swimming champion Tatjana Smith, who immediately hit the World Short Course Championships ‘A’ qualifying standard at the short course nationals following her Paris 2024 retirement.
“Having Tatjana back is brilliant – she’s got so much to offer as an athlete and a person,” Pople said.
“She comes back at her first meet and qualifies immediately. Combined with the young talent coming through across athletics and swimming, the athletic potential is incredible. The responsibility on us as administrators now is to clean up the boardrooms so our athletes can simply perform.”
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