SURFING SOUTH AFRICA DISCIPLINES

The South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC ) is the statutory body that is made up of the seventy six recognised National Sports Federations in South Africa. These recognised National Federations are those that are long standing members of their International Federations and are the only NF’s recognised by SASCOC and the National Department of Sport, Arts and Culture.

A number of these Federations are recognised Olympic Sports, such as Surfing, and others are non – Olympic sports.

SASCOC has also directed that each recognised NF be responsible and accountable for various disciplines that are consistent with the NF. This directive was initiated in 2013 and in the case of Surfing South Africa, was applied to Longboarding, Bodyboarding, Para Surfing, SUP Surfing and Kneeboarding. Because all these disciplines are part of the International Surfing Association and do not have the own independent International bodies, they fall under Surfing South Africa.

The WSL is not a National federation. It is an International Company set up to run various surfing events. In South Africa members of the WSL must also be members of SSA. Waveski, Kiteboarding, Windsurfing, Skimboarding, Foil Surfing, Bodyboarding, skateboarding, Flowrider and Sup Paddling are not disciplines of SSA.

This also means that none of these disciplines can form a National Body as they are, by SASCOC decree, already part of a national Body, namely Surfing South Africa. There can only be one National Federation for Surfing and its five disciplines and that is SSA.

However, as each discipline has its own unique set of rules and technical requirements, Surfing South Africa made the decision that each of them should be empowered to elect a Technical Committee to run their disciplines autonomously. This TC should consist of a Chairperson and other EC members. The Chairperson of each discipline is the point of contact with the GM of SSA.

The benefits of being a discipline within SSA is that National teams selected under SSA guidelines can for example, be awarded Protea Colours. These disciplines also have access to SSA’s Public Liability cover, judges, contest directors and so on. This would not be the case if they decided to break away from SSA. Breaking away would mean that they no longer would be a SASCOC member through the recognised federation and would not be able to award Protea colours or have access to the support that the recognised federation can offer.

However, they are not under any obligation to be a discipline of the recognised NF and can make their own decision to go it alone, but they would lose the benefit of being a member of SASCOC. Also SSA would then be required to select the national Longbaording, Bodyboarding, Para Surfing, Kneeboarding and SUP Surfing teams that go to ISA events without consulting the respective break – away disciplines.

Surfing South Africa (SSA)  is a registered NPO which relies on its funding from membership fees, commercial sponsorships and a small annual grant in aid from the National Department of Sport, Arts and Culture.

Without ongoing commercial funding and sponsorship support for the projects that Surfing South Africa is mandated to run each year, this important Olympic sport that brought back a silver medal from the Tokyo Olympics, will not survive.

As a founding member the World’s governing body for the sport, the International Surfing Association (ISA), SSA is responsible and accountable for all aspects of surfing in South Africa, from entry-level and grass roots participation, transformation and development, club and schools surfing, coaching and technical officials accreditation as well as the management of the junior SA Surf Tour (SAST), the selection of all National Teams and the qualification of Olympic athletes..

SSA works in partnership with the World Surf League (WSL) and sanctions all WSL events held in South Africa.

Provincial bodies, Western Cape Surfing Association, Eastern Cape Surfing Association and KwaZulu-Natal Surfing Association are made up of eight Districts. These districts are Cape Town Surfriders, Cape Winelands Surfriders, Eden Surfriders (all in the Western Cape), Nelson Mandela Bay Surfriders and Buffalo City Surfriders (both in the Eastern Cape) and Ugu, eThekweni and Ilembe Surfriders (all based in KZN).

The disciplines of shortboard Surfing, Para Surfing,Longboarding, Bodyboarding,Kneeboarding and SUP Surfing all fall under Surfing South Africa’s umbrella.

SSA caters for boys and girls at all levels and every ability within every community and attracts membership from as young as under eight years of age to over 65 years of age.

Surfing South Africa is an autonomous, democratically run sports organization, which is governed by its Constitution. It is bound by the policies and criteria laid down by the National Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC).

Policies such as those on transformation and development, national team selection process, approval of national team colours, international acceptance, constitutionality and good governance are among the criteria expected to be adhered to by Surfing South Africa.

Surfing South Africa is governed by a democratically elected Board of Directors, all of whom are volunteers.

The day to day administration of the organisation is conducted by a General Manager and an Operations Manager.

Please contact us on reza@surfingsouthafrica.co.za or on 079 373 1964 for more information.