Update on ASA Deregistration / Paid ASA contactor, Modern Athlete, Heavily Criticised

I chatted to a business law expert about the implication of Athletics South Africa (ASA) being deregistered on 5 February 2025. She told me that, as it stands right now, “Legally they are dead in the water. It’s like someone has blown their head off with a shotgun – they no longer exist.”

The deregistration is a result of ASA not filing their annual returns, required forms or paying company fees for the last 3 years. Any supposed issues with SARS and former directors are totally irrelevant to the deregistration. Essentially the issue is one of negligence and dereliction of duty from ASA’s directors and accountants / auditors.

However, this does not mean the permanent end of ASA as a legal entity. “Once they submit the outstanding returns and pay the outstanding fees, they can get reinstated.” This normally takes 10 days but it is a manual process conducted by the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) and they currently have a ‘significant backlog’.

“How long that takes is anyone’s guess – it could be two weeks, it could be a year.” Of course, ASA would still need to actually complete the documentation, file it and settle debts before this process even starts. “In the meantime the legal situation is that they are dead, they cannot act, they have no legal standing.”

“The catch is that in the meanwhile they do not exist, there are no rules to be administered, there is no ability to renegotiate television contracts. Current contracts are not automatically cancelled but any payments or enforcement cannot and should not be done.”

Legally there is no breach but it is a major administrative process and issue, “It is fixable but, until it’s fixed, we have an administrative and legal crisis in the sport.”

There are some big repercussions, most of them negative, with the deregistration, “Every single thing they’ve done since 5 February becomes invalid – this includes the suspension of Steven Swarts.” Swarts, a convicted rapist of a young athlete, was initially allowed to remain in his role as Athletics Free State President until sustained pressure resulted in ASA taking action and suspending the rapist nine months after his rape conviction came to light.

READ MORE: ASA Happy to let Rapist Run Loose Amongst Vulnerable Young Athletes

Another expert in the field, Charles Morten, a business consultant specialising in business planning and start-ups, added further weight to the severity of the deregistration, “They’ve allowed their returns and basic governance to slip for three years. The fact of the matter is that they have been negligent about sending in annual returns, their accountant has the responsibility of ensuring compliance and has clearly been negligent.”

As to the impact of the deregistration, Morton explained, “The effect of deregistration is that a company or CC is deprived of its legal personality. All its property, movable or immovable, corporeal and incorporeal, passes into ownership of the state as bona vacantia. Once deregistration begins, companies face potential loss of legal status, frozen bank accounts, and personal liability for directors.” He cited Miller and Others v Nafcoc Investment Holdings Co Ltd and Others 2010 (6) SA390 (SCA) as an example of what can happen.

Morton concluded, “It is true that the process recently added by CIPC to verify the beneficiary of proceeds i.e. “Beneficial Ownership” application mandate has slowed down the Annual Returns process at CIPC but this deregistration has been THREE years in the making. A company can be reinstated after being deregistered in South Africa, but the process is cumbersome.”

However, ASA President James Moloi feels that the deregistration is a ‘minor administrative issue’. Meanwhile Modern Athlete, a paid contractor with close connections to Moloi and ASA, published an unfounded and deplorable statement that the ASA deregistration was “fake news”. Whilst the post gained little traction, Modern Athlete also decided to share it widely to various Facebook running groups and athletics clubs. Some clubs subsequently deleted the share for violating their policies.

The post drew universal criticism from readers who disparaged the e-magazine’s integrity. One reader, Henry Schroeder, went so far to suggest, “It’s time to unsubscribe, unfollow and move on.”

Unsolicited, I received a screenshot of the post from attorney Mark Leathers with the comment, “It seems that the standards at Modern Athlete have dropped significantly since Sean [Falconer] left. They are now publishing fake news themselves. The author most certainly doesn’t understand basic company law.”

The e-magazine seems to have lost its way and is struggling to meet publishing deadlines since longtime editor Sean Falconer left at the end of 2024 (the January 2025 edition was published on 17 February and we’ve yet to see the February edition surface in the middle of March). The Modern Athlete fake “fake news” post was deleted later that evening, presumably in response to the negative reactions received.

The story was originally broken by freelance journalist Thathe Msimango, himself a former Modern Athlete contributor who was unceremoniously dumped from the publication after Falconer departed*. However, Roxanne Martin (co-owner of Modern Athlete and author of the “fake news” post), immediately turned on the red light and took the opportunity to chastise Msimango for “causing unnecessary panic for no reason” (despite Msimango providing irrefutable proof of the deregistration).

* Msimango also told me that he had submitted an article to Modern Athlete several months ago which has yet to see the light of day.

It is understood that Martin later apologized to Msimango but a public online apology, which would be both the standard and ethical practice in a situation like this, has not been forthcoming. Martin gained infamy in South African distance running circles for her role in the Two Oceans digimag scandal.

READ MORE: Two Oceans caught out in their own digimag lie

I sent a series of questions to Martin who, whilst skilfully avoiding answering the questions I’d asked, did provide a lengthy response (in the interests of transparency, I have included my questions and Martin’s full response as an afterword).

Martin explained, “I was at an ASA briefing ahead of the meet happening today at Pilditch Stadium, and so spoke to James Moloi immediately after, who explained in detail that they were not non operational and the de-registration was being dealt with by their auditors and had more to do with changes in the structures, then non compliance. We then received reliable confirmation from a CIPC communication stating that they have massive backlogs in the re-registering companies.”

It appears that Martin, whose company is a paid contractor and beneficiary doing business with Moloi and ASA, took his answer at face value and was happy to unquestioningly push the propaganda. Even the most trusting and gullible of journalists knows that nothing coming from ASA should be assumed to be true without rigorous fact checking. Whilst it is true that the CIPC does have backlogs, there is much doubt as to whether anything has been done to start the rehabilitation process with the CIPC and no evidence has been provided that the process has started.

Even more glaring is that this issue has absolutely nothing to do with “changes in the [ASA] structures”. Martin also seems to have completely ignored the documented fact that ASA has failed to file CIPC returns for three years. When I referred Martin’s answer to my business law expert, her response was, “She [Martin] is totally delusional.” Similarly, when I showed Msimango the reply from Martin, his concise response was, “She is talking nonsense.”

Martin explained the deletion of her fake “fake news” accusations as, “The reason the post was deleted as it was published without thinking through, and after some time to think about it, and extensive discussion this is not issues we should be involved in”. However Martin appeared to be blissfully unaware of the irony of her unsolicited attempt to take the moral high ground a few paragraphs earlier, “We should always wait for comment and present all the facts, especially on social media. It causes so much damage to organisations when they are on trial by social media especially when all facts are not presented.”

In further irony, Martin did not ask Msimango or the author for comment before accusing them of spreading fake news on social media or verifying whether they had in fact contacted ASA for comment.

On that note, I can confirm that a set of questions has been sent to ASA President James Moloi on the deregulation but no response has been received at the time of writing. I am still waiting for a response to my enquires on the Steven Swarts scandal. It appears that paid contractors tend to get far faster responses than freelance journalists and humble bloggers.

This is a developing story, another implication currently being investigated is: Do the provincial administrations still exist or do they derive their existence from ASA?

Afterword

This is the set of questions sent to Modern Athlete’s Roxanne Martin:

“Hi Roxanne, I’m writing an article on the ASA deregulation. Just wanted to check if Modern Athlete will be publishing a public apology to Thathe for falsely accusing him of fake news (and sharing to a variety of running clubs and groups). I understand you have already apologised to him in person. I also wanted to verify the nature of contractual work between Modern Athlete and Moloi / ASA / CGA in addition to last year’s City to City. Can you also confirm the reason why you decided to delete your fake news #falsenews Facebook post.”

Martin’s full unedited response:

“Hi Stuart,

We are also conducting further investigations into the matter, as the post left a lot open for questioning with regards to the issue at hand, I was at an ASA briefing ahead of the meet happening today at Pilditch Stadium, and so spoke to James Moloi immediately after, who explained in detail that they were not non operational and the de-registration was being dealt with by their auditors and had more to do with changes in the structures, then non compliance. We then received reliable confirmation from a CIPC communication stating that they have massive backlogs in the re-registering companies.
I would suggest you get comment from both parties in your article. I myself have been unable to get anything sorted with CIPC and as a result my accountant is the only person able to assist, so it is completely plausible that auditors are handling the process.

I have spoken to Thathe and explained that publishing without option of fair comment is detrimental to the sport as it causes unnecessary panic which was highlighted in the comments of your post.

We should always wait for comment and present all the facts, especially on social media. It causes so much damage to organisations when they are on trial by social media especially when all facts are not presented.

City to City used our marketing services on their race, as you know a big part of our business is marketing events.

I am currently awaiting further comment from CIPC, and when received would be happy to share with you. The reason the post was deleted as it was published without thinking through, and after some time to think about it, and extensive discussion this is not issues we should be involved in

We will always work to offer the best we can to the sport, and have suggested to ASA they need help in their communication structures to play open cards with the running public, whether they want our help or not only time will tell, at the core of it, both Rich and I are passionate about athletics in South Africa and would love to see organisations free of politics and doing what they should be doing supporting athletes.”

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