GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - The impact of the Sasa-II sport crisis on the future of all athletes holding international sport titles achieved during world championships, received much media attention over the last few months. Now it has attracted the attention of the union Solidarity.

Deputy CEO of Solidarity Werner Human said the athletes' desperate situation sparked their interest. "Sport is also a career. In this case, the athletes appear to be the victims of the systemic deterioration of the Sasa-II sport structure."

Human and Solidarity's head of the occupational guilds, Hennie Bierman, flew to George on Monday for a meeting with Hennie Janse van Rensburg, the parent of a local world champion swimmer with Down syndrome, Minke Janse van Rensburg (15), as part of their investigation.

Crisis
The South African Sports Association for the Intellectually Impaired (Sasa-II) has no funds available for teams to compete in other countries and their executive committee is not in favour of self-funding by the athletes.

Minke and other top South African Down syndrome athletes are being denied the chance to defend their titles at the world championship Trisome Games at the end of March.

The debt incurred is close to R1-million and includes affiliation fees to international sport bodies and a penalty fee.

Sasa-II president Ronnie Mohlabi previously said the sports body decided not to participate in any international events until their financial situation is stable. He blames poor financial management by the previous executive committee.

However, parents of some athletes and other interested parties fear that not enough is being done to ensure that the situation will change in the near future. Human said Solidarity wants to explore all the different angles and hopes to evoke public conversations on sport. He said it appears that a strong sense of accountability is lacking.

"There is no pressure from any sports body. We need to approach this matter through a legal point of view."