Sunday Times Editorial: IT's a painful irony that a nation that has benefited from the unifying and uplifting exploits of its sporting heroes must hand over power to administrators who are clearly inept, often corrupt, and divisive. In South Africa the phrase "sports administrator" is quickly becoming an oxymoron.

From the mess that is Cricket SA, to Safa and the PSL's inability to lift our game to where it deserves to be, to rugby's frequent Bok blunders, and the sorry saga that was Leonard Chuene's stewardship of Athletics SA, our administrators have not covered themselves in glory.

The latest drama revolves around the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee's seeming aversion to common sense.

Sascoc CEO Tubby Reddy's attitude, when questioned about why he is flying business class, along with four other administrators, to the Youth Winter Olympics in Innsbruck - where South Africa is represented by a single athlete - seems to be "go hang, it's none of your business".

Is it any wonder that ordinary South Africans have become somewhat cynical about their sports administrators?

Reddy appears unable to comprehend that he, and the Sascoc executive, are accountable to the people of the Republic of South Africa, who they serve.

Sascoc is the controlling body for high-performance sport in South Africa. It is not Reddy's personal fiefdom.

Nor does Reddy seem to value the relationships built with sponsors, whose cash injections sport cannot do without.

What do these sponsors make of the decision to have the CEO, deputy vice-president of Sascoc, and the local International Olympic Committee member fly to Innsbruck when all we could muster was one, albeit talented, skier? A chef de mission and a project manager also went along to Austria. This does not look like a smart use of scarce resources.

Developing talent seems to be far down the order of priorities for these administrators.

We imagine that none of the Sascoc bigwigs will feel embarrassed that they outnumber "Team SA" in Innsbruck.

But they really should be. Because we certainly are.