Athletics South Africa can’t host historic track meeting due to lack of funds

The World Athletics Federation granted ASA the right to host the event at the Puk McArthur Stadium in April.

However, ASA does not have the R4 million, which gives them access to host the one-day meeting.

The criteria for hosting the star-studded track meeting is the guarantee of prize money from the hosting athletics federation.

The world athletics governing body informed ASA about the requirements last week.

ASA boss James Moloi told SABC Sport that after consulting his board, they decided to drop their plans to host the meeting due to financial shortfalls.

 “We thought we were supposed to go 50/50 with the World Athletics for the prize money, only to discover that we must do everything by ourselves. We cannot spend that kind of money on a one-day event. We would need at least R6 million for the overall event,” said Moloi.

Moloi said ASA’s coffers have dried up as he apologized for robbing the local athletes of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to compete against some of the biggest names in world athletics on home soil.

Botswana athletics federation approached their government to source the funding to host the event at the Gaborone International Stadium in March.

However, the ASA board did not approach the SA government for assistance.

“We will send as many athletes as we can to Botswana. It was too little too late to approach the sports minister and request an amount of more than R4 million. We had to let it go and move on to other things,” explained Moloi.

ASA has yet to release its calendar for 2023 because of the Gold Label decision.

Athletics fanatics missed out on the opportunity to watch big names such as Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (Jamaica), Fred Kerley (USA), Marie-Josee Talou (Ivory Coast), and Athing Mu (USA), to mention a few.

“We will concentrate on hosting three Grand Prix meetings at a reasonable cost in Gauteng and North West. The first one will take place at the Pilditch Stadium in Tshwane, the second one will take place at the Germiston Stadium in Johannesburg, and the last one will take place in Potchefstroom. We would rather use a couple of millions for four events, including the national senior championships in Tshwane in April than spend millions on one event,” added Moloi.