Trouble is looming in the land of SA Hockey, following the sports body’s axing of women’s head coach, Jenny King, amid unconfirmed allegations of excessive spending by two as-yet unnamed SAHA executive members, shoddy treatment of Spar, the former naming right’s sponsor of women’s hockey, and that the sport’s governing body had to borrow R1 million in 2009 to avoid bankruptcy.

SAHA has closed ranks following a decision by the CCMA that the governing body of hockey in SA had a fixed-term contract of employment with Jenny King, and that it may have fired its former head coach of women’s hockey unlawfully.

Speaking to gsport from Cape Town, King confirmed that she has received notification from the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, that the parties are headed for formal arbitration on 9 March, to determine whether SAHA’s termination of its contract with King amounts to unlawful dismissal.

Following conciliation (the first step prior to formal arbitration of labour disputes), the CCMA has decided that SAHA’s contentions that the CCMA did not have jurisdiction over the dispute, and that SAHA’s decision was termination of contract - rather than dismissal – are legally unsupported.

SAHA has to date not given any reason for its 1 November, 2009, termination of King’s contract, which was to run until December, 2010.

Speaking of her frustration at SAHA’s actions, King explained: “We (were) six months out from the end of our four-year long-term team development program. We entered into the final phase in June last year, training and playing to win, and after a very successful Champions Challenge in October, I felt that the team was certainly on track for a Commonwealth medal.”

The net result is that the women’s team has been stranded with no international fixtures leading into the World Cup in September in Argentina, and the Commonwealth Games in October.

At present the senior women’s hockey team is floundering without a coach or training schedule. “The fact that the program has been stopped will have a great impact on their performance, a change of coach will effectively stop the long-term development program,” King told gsport. “A number of players have now gone back to full-time studying, as they could not make a decision on whether they should study part time or not, because they had no information on the National program.

“They have thus decided not to put their lives on hold any longer, and so some of them will not be able to attend the Commonwealth Games  and the World Cup, and this will weaken the World Cup team considerably. The team motivation and moral is very low right now, they are just not motivated to train,” said King.

gsport's attempts to get comment from SAHA proved unsuccessful, as various parties indicated the only person authorised to speak on the matter was Hockey CEO, Marissa Lungeni. Requests for comment from Ms Lungeni were unanswered at time of publication.

Off-the-record comments from parties in the know are that Spar was furious with SA Hockey (Edit: refer to Spar's rejection of these allegations below), because SAHA came to the negotiation table with a contract that stated that if Spar wanted the women's teams naming rights, it had to take up sponsorship of the senior men’s team as well.

SPAR Director of Marketing, Roelf Venter, vehemently denied that there was bad blood between Spar and SAHA. “Comments that Spar was furious are entirely incorrect. Spar and SAHA always enjoyed a good relationship, and have parted ways on good footing. What happens in SA Hockey (with regard to King’s dismissal) is an internal matter, and as Spar, we have no involvement there.

“There was a proposal from SAHA that it would like Spar to be a national sponsor (for both the senior men’s and women’s teams), but that was not Spar’s focus.”

Venter referred to various Spar sponsorships of women’s sport, including road running and netball, with hockey having been aimed the higher-LSM target markets. But with the group’s new focus on hunger relief, it had decided to forgo the hockey sponsorship, when it came up for renewal.

So, what is the current situation at South Africa Hockey? gsport has learned that the men’s team have a full match- and training program leading into their World Cup in March, as well as a full-time coach.

By contrast, in addition to losing their naming rights sponsor, the women have no fitness or conditioning programs, their skill and team tactical program has been stopped, the coach has been fired, the sport psychology program has been stopped, and the team have had no communication from SAHA in three months.

Kings suggestion is that SASCOC and Lotto should be asking questions. “SASCOC have committed to taking the women's team to the Commonwealth Games, as we are ranked in the top four, hence SASCOC will be investing considerable funds into the team, as have Lotto, who gave each national team in the region of R1 million for training camps this year.

“The other important consideration is that women's hockey will only go to the 2012 Olympics if we win a medal at Commonwealth Games, even more reason to increase support to the women's team, not take it away,” said King.

Correction and clarification (14h18, 5 February, 2010): Corrected Mr Venter's designation from CEO (incorrect) to Director of Marketing, Mr Venter vehemently denying that Spar was furious at SAHA for any reason whatsoever.

Comments

Add New

Caroline Jack  - Mrs   |2010-02-09 14:52:52 As an ex-player I find it very sad to see the situation that our sport finds itself in. I do however admire Jenny King for being the first person to finally hold the amateurs at South African hockey accountable for their actions. I just wish that the CCMA would rule against the individuals who couldn't care less what their egos are doing to our sport. It is sad to see the sport of hockey suffering here when individuals should be bearing the brunt for the sport being in such turmoil. An executive who allows a long serving employee of 22 years to leave without a phone call from a single one of them to wish him well on his ways - well that is just disgraceful and testament to the type of individuals running the association at the moment. It would be nice to see SASCOC step in as they did with ASA and clean out the rubbish that is running this association and allow the sport to get back on its feet. Many people see Jenny as an... Reply 6   0

Write comment
Name:
Email:
Title:
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.26

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."