Swimming South Africa In Turmoil Amidst Multiple Legal Battles, World Cup Withdrawals

Reports earlier this month that a group of South African water polo players had started a movement to break away from Swimming South Africa (SSA) appears to have only been the tip of the iceberg as the national governing body faces numerous accusations of questionable decisions to the detriment of their athletes.

Both the South African men’s and women’s water polo teams qualified for the 2024 Olympic Games, meeting World Aquatics’ criteria of being the top African team, but failed to reach the SSA’s internal standard of placing in the top 12 at the 2024 World Championships.

That ultimately resulted in SSA withdrawing its teams from the Games, which was one of many issues the faction of players have had with the federation and its treatment of the sport as a whole.

More recently, the water polo disputes have escalated while there are separate ongoing issues involving the artistic swimmers who were denied an opportunity to compete at the Olympics and another with a junior diver and their mother after they were treated unfairly by the federation regarding selection to the World Aquatics Junior Diving Championships.

WATER POLO PLAYERS WITHDRAW FROM WORLD CUP

A questionably stringent set of criteria laid out by SSA for next month’s World Aquatics World Cup Division 2 tournaments has resulted in numerous players who qualified to represent South Africa withdrawing, putting the team’s competitiveness on the world stage at risk.

Prior to announcing the rosters, the SSA published selection criteria for the event that stated only players who belonged to members of clubs that showed intention of competing at the Senior National Water Polo Championships would be available for selection. This was part of the criteria despite the National meet being canceled due to too few clubs registering, according to The Daily Maverick.

The chairs of the three largest water polo bodies in the country (Cape Town Metro Water Polo, Gauteng Water Polo and KZN Water Polo) wrote a joint letter to SSA questioning the selection criteria and requested an independent review of the process. The letter highlighted the “significant procedural irregularities in the selection process that raise serious concerns about fairness, transparency and adherence to published criteria.”

The criteria was published on Oct. 31, just over a week prior to the team roster announcements on Nov. 7 and Nov. 8.

The Daily Maverick reports that while the exact number of players withdrawing is unknown, high school players have been recruited to fill their spots.

“It is stupid expensive for a three-day tour,” one player who withdrew from the tournament told Daily Maverick. “The price [to attend the World Cup] has gone up to R62,000 (approx. $3,430 USD).

“The main reason [for not going] was that half of the [players] were excluded because they potentially weren’t going to go to nationals that didn’t even happen — it was canceled.

“After all the work that everyone put in, it’s just a slap in the face to say that they couldn’t come and then be left with less than half of the athletes that play water polo in the country to go on the national tour.”

After the National competition was canceled, the Cape Town Invitational Tournament, which restricts certain regions from playing, served as the World Cup selection meet. This led to the already small group of eligible players for selection to shrink even further. For example, two programs that had intended to compete at Nationals, KwaZulu-Natal and High Performance Polo, were outside of the specified region, meaning they were ineligible for World Cup qualification.

After the National competition was canceled, it was agreed that the Cape Town Invitational Tournament would be used as a selection event to replace Nationals for the World Cup. However because some teams did not come to the CTI event, this reduced the opportunity for these athletes even further. This led to the already small group of eligible players for selection to shrink even further. Subsequently, SSA seems to have selectively reversed some criteria, now allowing players from specific ineligible teams to suddenly have six players selected.

If South Africa does not field teams at the competition, they will face an R160,000 (approx. $8,860 USD) fine per team.

The Water Polo World Cup Division 2 tournaments will take place in Istanbul, Turkey, with the women’s competition running from December 14-17 and the men’s from December 14-18.

SSA FACES LAWSUIT FROM ARTISTIC SWIMMING PAIR

Swimming South Africa took a hit during a recent disciplinary hearing related to the lawsuit being brought against it by artistic swimmers Laura Strugnell and Jessica Hayes-Hill.

Strugnell and Hayes-Hill are suing the national governing body for R7.2 million (approx. $395,000 USD) over a botched disciplinary process that cost them an opportunity to qualify for the 2024 Olympics. The pair were in Doha for the 2024 World Championships, but were sent home before getting the chance to compete and vie for an Olympic berth.

Declining to go in-depth on the reasoning why they were sent home, SSA charged the pair with “deceitful actioning of training protocol without management approval.”

This was done during a disciplinary hearing with both swimmers absent. The ruling was then appealed and it was found that the process was substantively and procedurally unfair.

SSA then vowed to challenge the appeal panel’s decision in a press release, according to the Daily Maverick.

“Whilst SSA respects the findings of the appeal panel insofar their criticism regarding the disciplinary process that was followed, that does not detract from the athletes’ deplorable conduct at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha, which brought SSA into disrepute and compromised the hard work of the rest of the artistic swimming team,” SSA said.

Most recently, SSA instituted another disciplinary hearing against Strugnell and Hayes-Hill, hitting them with a total of 46 charges including alleged breaches of behavior in Qatar as well as at a pre-Worlds training camp, according to the Sunday Times.

SSA’s charges weren’t even debated at the hearing, as the swimmers’ lawyer argued that they could no longer be considered members of SSA because of Article 19.2 of the organization’s constitution, which states: “Any members resorting to court/legal action to resolve a dispute will automatically cease to be a member.”

The arbiter agreed that due to the legal action, Strugnell and Hayes-Hill can no longer be considered members and therefore could not be subjected to the hearing.

Parent Brings SSA To Court Over Diving Selection

The mother of a junior South African diver has filed a court case against SSA, claiming the federation was unjust in not selecting her child for the World Aquatics Junior Diving Championships.

The mother had her SSA membership terminated after taking SSA to court, with her child having been denied a spot on the World Junior team despite qualifying, the Daily Maverick reports.

A source told Daily Maverick that SSA claims the athlete was left off the roster accidentally, though there hasn’t been any evidence filed to back up that claim.

The athlete has since been added to the team and is currently competing at the championships which will run in Rio de Janeiro through December 1.

The Gauteng Division of the High Court in Johannesburg will decide whether or not the mother’s SSA membership was lawfully terminated, despite the fact it was done according to SSA’s constitution (just like the artistic swimmers’ case, the mother taking legal action against SSA meant her membership would be suspended immediately).

Amidst the multiple legal issues currently facing SSA, there are calls from the nation’s athletes for transparency and communication, something that has clearly been lacking in recent months.