Roland Schoeman on Swimming SA's 20 year cover-up: Two suspensions are not reform

Two suspensions have hit Swimming South Africa, but Olympic medallist Roland Schoeman says the real scandal has run for twenty years — and two scalps won't fix it. Alan Fritz and Shaun Adriaanse are provisionally suspended over abuse-of-power and fake-document allegations. Schoeman, a four-time Olympian who lived the federation's dysfunction firsthand, traces it back through a buried 2008 Arendse Commission report, a R111-million derelict high-performance centre now under SIU investigation, and a R7.2-million damages claim from athletes wrongly sent home from Doha. His demand: an independent forensic probe into the whole executive, not just the two men currently carrying the blame..By Roland Schoeman*.For more than twenty years, athletes, parents, coaches and administrators have been warning that something is deeply wrong inside Swimming South Africa.We were ignored. We were dismissed. We were made to feel like we were the problem.Now Alan Fritz and Shaun Adriaanse have been provisionally suspended by the Aquatics Integrity Unit in connection with potential violations of the World Aquatics Integrity Code, including abuse of power and the provision of false information and fake documents.While the proceedings continue, they are prohibited from holding any position within Swimming South Africa, Africa Aquatics, World Aquatics or any other recognised body. They are also prohibited from participating in or attending aquatic activities, events, meetings or competitions in any capacity.That is serious.But nobody should pretend that removing two people suddenly fixes Swimming South Africa.They did not operate alone. There was an executive committee around them. There were people who approved decisions, signed off on expenditure, enforced policies and remained silent when athletes were being treated unfairly.This is not simply about two individuals. It is about the system that allowed this to continue.Swimming South Africa knew it had serious problems more than twenty years ago.Its own strategic process in 2004 identified staff incompetence, weak budgeting and financial systems, poor communication, loose management, unclear responsibilities, poor implementation and a lack of accountability.Those were not accusations made by angry athletes. Swimming South Africa identified those problems itself.Then came the Arendse Commission in 2008.The commission found that swimmers lacked proper scientific, technical, financial and administrative support. It found that serious conflict within the Olympic team had not been managed effectively, or at all. It found confused responsibilities, insufficient organisational capacity, officials carrying multiple roles and little or no accountability.The commission made thirteen formal findings and sixteen recommendations.It called for Swimming South Africa to be restructured and brought in line with a modern sporting organisation. It recommended stronger corporate governance, independent outside directors, an independent grievance process, better athlete consultation and a complete review of how the organisation operated.Most importantly, Recommendation 16 stated that the commission should not be disbanded. Its mandate was supposed to be expanded to ensure that the recommendations were adopted by the Swimming South Africa executive. An audit of progress was supposed to be completed within three months and before the 2009 annual general meeting.Where is that audit?Which recommendations were implemented?Who was responsible for implementing them?Who checked that the work had actually been done?We are now almost eighteen years removed from that report and the public is still entitled to ask those questions.I know what this system feels like because I lived it.I represented South Africa at four Olympic Games, in 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012. I won three Olympic medals and broke multiple world records. In 2016, I attended the Rio Olympic Games as head coach of the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic swimming team.I gave everything I had to represent South Africa.Yet some of the greatest stress I experienced during my career did not come from the athletes standing next to me on the starting blocks. It came from the people who were supposed to support me.In 2002, while studying and training in Tucson, I was diagnosed with a stress fracture in my foot. Swimming South Africa would not accept the independent diagnosis. I was required to fly from Tucson to Johannesburg to be examined by its doctor before returning to the United States.Before a World Cup event in Singapore, I was told that Swimming South Africa had contacted the organisers and stated that I was not part of the South African team. At the time, I wrote to my family because I genuinely feared that Swimming South Africa would try to prevent me from competing.In 2008, my attorneys wrote directly to senior officials, including Jace Naidoo, Shaun Adriaanse, Rushdee Warley and others, about the handling of my Salbutamol therapeutic use exemption.The letter recorded that Swimming South Africa informed me on 13 March 2008 that the exemption had expired. It also recorded that the exemption had expired at least as far back as February and that I had not been warned beforehand.This was an Olympic year. A failure involving an athlete’s therapeutic use exemption could have had devastating consequences.At the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona, I was threatened with disciplinary action and financial consequences over wearing Mizuno equipment rather than Arena equipment.These threats were being made while I was preparing to compete for South Africa.This was how the organisation exercised power over athletes. Selection, funding, disciplinary procedures, equipment agreements and access to competition could all be used to bring athletes into line.The Arendse Commission recorded that Ryk Neethling and I regarded parts of the elite athlete agreement as dictatorial. It recorded that the agreement gave the national coach or performance manager absolute discretion over where and when elite athletes should compete internationally or attend training camps.The commission specifically stated that my experience was unnecessary. It recommended that Swimming South Africa review the agreement in consultation with swimmers and consider the draft I had proposed.That was in 2008.How many athletes went through similar experiences after that?How many stayed quiet because they were afraid of losing their place on a team?How many parents decided it was safer not to speak?How many careers were affected without the public ever hearing about it?In 2024, artistic swimmers Jessica Hayes-Hill and Laura Strugnell were withdrawn from the World Championships in Doha and sent home. Doha was also an Olympic qualifying competition.An appeal panel later found that the disciplinary process had not been procedurally or substantively fair. It found that the management team had failed to comply with Swimming South Africa’s disciplinary protocol in every material respect. The sanctions were set aside.The swimmers had already lost their opportunity to compete at the qualifying event.They have brought a R7.2 million damages claim against Swimming South Africa. That claim remains pending.According to an affidavit reported on in 2026, Swimming South Africa stated that it had searched for requested material but could not say with certainty where certain disciplinary recordings, selection committee minutes and internal correspondence were located.How does a national federation fail to locate records connected to decisions that had such serious consequences for athletes?Swimming South Africa also went to court seeking an interdict against South African Water Polo.The High Court dismissed the application. The judge found that Swimming South Africa had misconceived the nature of the right it was trying to protect. Swimming South Africa was ordered to pay the legal costs, including the costs of senior and junior counsel.Who approved that litigation?How much did it cost?Whose money paid for it?Was anyone held accountable?Then there is the Franschhoek High Performance Centre.The total projected cost of the project was approximately R111 million. Reporting indicates that Swimming South Africa had received approximately R50 million from World Aquatics, the National Lotteries Commission and the Sports Trust.Despite that funding, the site has been described and photographed as derelict and incomplete.The Special Investigating Unit has confirmed that its investigation into the National Lotteries Commission grant for the project remains ongoing. The SIU has said that it is investigating the process that led to the allocation of the grant.South Africans have every right to ask what happened to the money that was received, who approved the expenditure, who selected the contractors and what was actually delivered.Transformation is another issue that has been discussed for decades without sufficient progress.In 2008, the Arendse Commission found that no Black swimmer had represented South Africa at an Olympic Games since readmission.When Alan Fritz appeared before Parliament in April 2025, he confirmed that Swimming South Africa had transformation targets and acknowledged that those targets had not been achieved.After all these years, how is that acceptable?Transformation cannot continue to be a word used in presentations. It requires pools, coaches, funding and competitive pathways in communities that have historically been excluded.Where are the independently verified results?It would now be very convenient to sacrifice Alan Fritz and Shaun Adriaanse and claim that the problem has been solved.I do not accept that.Who sat on the executive committee while these decisions were being made?Who approved the litigation?Who monitored the finances?Who dealt with athlete complaints?Who was responsible for implementing the Arendse recommendations?Who challenged the concentration of power?Who remained silent?Every executive member who participated in these decisions, approved them or failed to question them must be independently examined.For years, Graeme Joffe was one of the few journalists willing to keep asking difficult questions about South African sports administration.Why was he largely left to do it alone?Why did we celebrate the medals but show so little interest in what athletes were experiencing behind the scenes?Why was there so little sustained scrutiny of the people who controlled selection, money, discipline and access to competition?Was it fear of litigation?Was it fear of losing access?Were athletes too scared to speak?Or did nobody care enough to connect the dots?Daily Maverick’s recent reporting has been important. But it should not have taken intervention from an international integrity body for these issues to receive serious national attention.The warnings were there.The documents were there.The athletes were there.What was missing was accountability.Swimming South Africa cannot be allowed to investigate itself again.There must be an independent normalisation process.There must be an independent forensic investigation into the organisation’s finances, procurement, legal expenditure and the Franschhoek project.The entire executive structure must be examined, not just the two people currently suspended.The public deserves a complete account of what happened to the Arendse recommendations. The Goldman safeguarding report should be released with appropriate legal protections for victims. Historic disciplinary cases should be reviewed. Athletes must have access to an independent grievance and safeguarding body outside Swimming South Africa’s control..Read more:.Tatjana Smith takes on shambolic Swimming SA.Executive meeting minutes, voting records, declared conflicts of interest, procurement decisions and significant legal expenditure should be made public.Once the investigation and normalisation process is complete, fresh elections should be held under independent supervision.South African athletes deserve better than this.Administrators are supposed to serve the sport. They do not own it. They do not own the athletes. They should never be able to intimidate people into silence or make athletes fear for their careers simply because they asked questions.The suspensions of Alan Fritz and Shaun Adriaanse are not the end of this story.They are the reason the whole system must finally be examined.Publish the records.Trace the money.Identify who made and approved the decisions.Hold every person who enabled this system accountable.Then rebuild Swimming South Africa around the people it was always supposed to serve.The athletes..*Roland Schoeman is an Olympic champion and competitor at four Olympic Games. Head coach of the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic swimming team, Rio 2016.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. 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Roland Schoeman on Swimming SA's 20 year cover-up: Two suspensions are not reform

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