New regulations adopted by the National Lottery Committee will restrict the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) and sporting federations from using allocated funds for international competitions.
Responding to reports yesterday that Sascoc faced a threat to its existence due to funding cuts, the committee said it was premature for the Olympic body to make such assumptions.
Sascoc chief executive Tubby Reddy said on Monday that it would be restricted to the same limits as national sport federations.
Although the National Lottery denied this, it revealed measures that would hamstring Sascoc in delivering on its mandate of preparing teams for competitions such as the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games.
Sascoc is also responsible for developing high-performance sport in the country.
“In previous years, Sascoc was funded for, among others, team preparation for international events,” the National Lottery said in a statement yesterday.
“The new regulations do not make provision for activities outside the borders of SA.”
Sascoc would not be able to use the funds it receives from the committee for international camps, or aid athletes or federations that have to compete overseas.
Athletes would be unable to ask for reimbursements for costs they incurred outside South Africa.
The National Lottery said the growing number of applications for funding and limited resources resulted in amendments of the Lotteries Act.
The changes, among others, include limiting funding for activities within South Africa, and a "cooling-off" period between grants to prevent dependency on the National Lottery.
“Recent reports about the plight of Sascoc has brought the dependency of NGOs on one source of funding, and the cooling-off period between grants, to the fore,” the committee said.
“Such dependency is exactly what the legislation was meant to prevent. Sascoc has received over R300 million since inception of lottery funding in 2000.
“The most recent grant of R70m was paid in June 2016 and has to be reported on satisfactorily before any new funding can be considered.”
Reddy said restricting funding for use only in South Africa was "news to him", and Sascoc would meet the committee next week.
“We are seeking a further meeting with them, I think next week Tuesday, just to get clarity on the way forward,” he said.
“One aspect of funding where the athletes benefit is support for international preparation participation it means one would now have to look at other avenues of funding.”