ASA to pay injured athlete this week after missing deadline

JUST one week after negotiating a settlement with permanently injured pole vaulter Jan Blignaut, cash-strapped Athletics South Africa has defaulted — a move that might put its Houghton mansion at risk.

The embattled federation was supposed to have paid a portion of the R10.4-million damages awarded to Blignaut by the end of Thursday, but now it plans to make payment by Tuesday, according to the former athlete’s lawyer.

“Once we receive payment, we can consider our options and take further instruction,” attorney Frikkie Jordaan said late on Friday afternoon.

He said he was contacted by ASA’s financial manager, Terrence Magogodela, on Friday afternoon. It was the first contact he had received from anyone at the organisation since before the deadline had passed the day before.

“He told me payment ought to be made on Tuesday.”

ASA House, the federation’s headquarters, was supposed to have been auctioned off on Thursday last week to raise the money owed.

But in an eleventh-hour agreement the evening before, ASA and Jordaan struck a deal that the federation would make an “interim payment” by Thursday.

According to the agreement, the federation would then have had a further three months to negotiate “the balance payable and terms of such payment”.

The amounts listed in the agreement were confidential.

Jordaan said his client had been accommodating, having also previously twice agreed to halt attempts to auction off ASA’s moveable assets.

Blignaut suffered head, neck and back injuries during a competition in March 2009. At the time, ASA, then under the presidency of Leonard Chuene, had failed to pay liability insurance.

When Blignaut’s case against ASA first went to court in April 2013 to assess whether he had a legitimate claim, the federation, then under the presidency of James Evans, was paralysed by infighting and failed to defend the action.

At the next trial, in September last year, to determine how much should be paid, Blignaut’s legal team submitted 11 medicolegal reports and two actuarial calculations.

That court order made pro- vision for payment within 14 days, plus annual interest of 9%.

But Blignaut, who had to quit his engineering studies after the accident, agreed to lower the amount and not impose interest penalties.

“My client has been more than reasonable,” said Jordaan.

Blignaut will require medical assistance for the rest of his life.

ASA president Aleck Skho- sana did not respond to requests for comment.

ASA was once the richest of the Cinderella federations in this country, boasting revenue of more than R40-million in 2007, but it has lost lucrative sponsorships over the years.

In the last audited financial statements it made available, its accumulated deficit in 2012 had swollen to more than R4-million.

The federation recently introduced two new track and field meets to the annual calendar, the first of which was staged in Germiston yesterday.

Magogodela said payment will be made on Tuesday