SA Swimming Leaders Handed Provisional Suspensions Over Integrity Breach Allegations
Two officials under inquiry over "potential violations of the World Aquatics Integrity Code. The alleged misconduct includes abuse of power and the provision of false information and fake documents.”
Swimming SA (SSA) president Alan Fritz and CEO Shaun Adriaanse have been provisionally suspended by the Aquatics Integrity Unit (AQIU) over alleged abuse of power and the provision of false information and fake documents.
The AQIU suspensions, pending further enquiries and judgment, came into force on Monday this week. They relate to alleged violations of the World Aquatics Integrity Code.
Fritz and Adriaanse are barred from holding any position within SSA, Africa Aquatics, World Aquatics or any other body affiliated to or recognised by World Aquatics. The suspension means the two men are prohibited from participating in or attending any aquatic-related activities, events, meetings or competitions in any capacity. In a statement, AQIU noted:
“The AQIU has provisionally suspended Mr Alan Fritz, president of Swimming South Africa (SSA), and Mr Shaun Adriaanse, CEO of SSA, from 24 August 2026 for potential violations of the World Aquatics Integrity Code. The alleged misconduct includes abuse of power and the provision of false information and fake documents.”
The AQIU inquiry is underway and he body said it would make no further comment during its investigation.
Fritz, a former vice-president, was first elected to the Swimming SA presidency in September 2016. He has served on the SSA executive committee since 2004.
In August 2024, he sparked controversy when he ran for an additional term beyond constitutional term limits. He is not the first official to do so, neither domestically nor internationally, FINA, at a time when current World Aquatics leaders were in senior leadership positions, voted for constitutional changes to enable previous terms limits to be exceeded, and they did so at the same time as they adopted rules that said any challenger to what can reasonably be described as the status-quo candidate, would be excluded from aquatics governance if they lost such a challenge. Those conditions are highly unusual, to say the least, in democratic forums the world over.
Meanwhile, Adriaanse was appointed as CEO in the early 2000s and remained in post until August 2024.
Records track his active tenure as CEO back to at least 2004, according to News24 in South Africa.
The precise nature of the case against the two officials at SA Swimming is not known, nor is it known whether matters are related to controversies at SA in recent years, including one that resulted in an accusation that the swim federation had not been truthful when responding to Parliamentary inquiries into alleged abuse cases back in 2022:
Craig Lord
South African media states that it has still has no reply to inquiries out to Swimming South Africa.
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