Sascoc fat cats live large at the Durban July

Olympic body’s bigwigs spend four days at a plush hotel while athletes cry out for funding

While its athletes are grovelling for funding, Sascoc fat cats were wined and dined at the Durban July, racking up a bill of as much as R370 000.

The SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) CEO Tubby Reddy and several board members spent four days celebrating the glamorous equestrian event, it can be revealed.

Sascoc’s budget for elite athletes is so limited that many of the country’s leading sportsmen no longer get funding for coaches.

Reddy’s son Mishen, several ­Sascoc board members and employees, ANC MP Mgolodi Dikgacwi and other guests who are not employees of Sascoc, racked up their hefty bill at the luxury Coastlands Hotel in Umhlanga. Dikgacwi is also his party’s whip in the parliamentary portfolio committee on sport.

Sascoc president Gideon Sam and the chairperson of the National Lottery Board, Professor Ntshengedzeni Nevhutanda, also stayed at the hotel.

Meanwhile, several medallists at last year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games have, since March, not received any money from Sascoc to help cover their coaching fees.

Sascoc regularly refers to its “limited resources”, which apparently forces it to “prioritise” its spending on ­athletes.

The horse race took place only on the Saturday, but Reddy and company regaled themselves at the hotel for four nights.

The hotel expenses for Reddy and his son Mishen were more than­ R23 000 and Tubby blew R7 654 just on food and drinks.

The R79 161 hotel bill is more than the coaching subsidy that the athletes of Sascoc’s Operation Excellence programme (Opex) could previously have relied on for a whole year.

But several Opex members’ training grants were suddenly stopped in March when they signed their new Sascoc contracts.

This applies to all 10 of South ­Africa’s swimmers who are hoping to win medals at the next Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio.

Sascoc’s hotel account was, in all likelihood, Sascoc’s smallest expenditure for the weekend.

The Sascoc group and their guests at the July followed the race from the Pegasus Lounge.

A source in the travel industry said Sascoc booked 18 business class return tickets from Johannesburg to Durban on SAA.

According to Sam, expenditure for the July was justified because ­Sascoc is a shareholder in the horse racing company Phumelela.

Look on the bright side. They all probably had such a good time spending other people's money that they returned home with post Natal depression.

makes me sick....

what more can one say these days...:X

And we wonder why sportsmen like Froome leave our shores. :S

And ppl have fat lot to about racing being crooked.
These ppl are a joke. Heads should be rolling

No doubt it will be swept under the carpet!

No sweeping under the carpet. Graeme Joffe has been fighting SASCOC for months on all forums. He has now been sued for R21 million by the body. Should all come out in the court case.

We can only hope they suffer from gout and high cholesterol .

This response is not a defense of SASCOC but rather a comment on hotel accommodation.............

1.) I am not sure precisely how many guests actually stayed at the hotel as numbers were not quoted in the post. But if you divide the R79,000 by the number of days ( 4? ) you arrive at approximately R20,000 per day for the party.

2.) At around about R 4,000 per day per room ( you can be assured that they probably booked suites! ) this suggests they booked about 4-5 rooms/suites and that the party probably comprised 8-10 people.

On that basis it does not look excessive ( and here I am ignoring the 'politics' of the whole affair ).

I make this comment only because I am friendly with a General Manager of a prominent hotel chain who has plenty of 'war stories' to tell about excessive guest expenditure.

One of the more memorable revolves around a group of 4 gentlemen who wandered into his hotel recently and sat down for dinner. They departed 3 hours later having settled ( in cash ) a bar bill of R68,000 - made up primarily of rare liquer brandy.

You could pass the Hangover Sports Bar on to them Garrick
We have a brandy special for the local Blue Bulls supporters -D

Amazing how a persons tastes increase when it is not your money being spent ..