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An incident report filed by Team SA’s doctor after last month’s Summer Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contains allegations of sexual harassment against the man who led the country’s delegation.
In the report dated October, which City Press has obtained, Karen Schwabe alleges that Clifford Cobers, manager of operations and events at the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc), sexually harassed women medical staff, made racist remarks and drank copious amounts of alcohol in the Athletes Village – an alcohol-free zone.
“On numerous occasions, he said that the physiotherapist room looks like a bordello. He repeatedly asked if he can come get a ‘happy ending’ – ongoing, as if that was a joke. This was not appreciated at all,” Schwabe wrote.
“He presented to physio a few times for his back, making these statements again in front of [a female staff member].”
Called for comment last week, a woman who refused to identify herself said Schwabe would not comment because she withdrew the incident report.
Cobers would neither confirm nor deny the allegations, writing on email: “I have discussed the content with Sascoc and I was advised that it has been dealt with internally. I reserve my rights.”
Sascoc vice-president Barry Hendricks said that even though Schwabe withdrew her complaint, “we regard this as a serious issue and will investigate it further”.
In the incident report, Schwabe – a member of Team SA for nine years and the medical head of Western Province Rugby – writes that she did not want to report the incidents, “but for the honour of our country, and respect for future medical and Olympic colleagues, I feel it my duty to report the poor conduct of the acting chef de mission, Clifford Cobers”.
“I have discussed this matter with various colleagues at the recent games and of previous games, and have been asked to do this.”
In her report, Schwabe also names an athletics coach, whom she alleges was “repeatedly” in the hotel room she shared with the chief physiotherapist, chatting to the woman for “hours”, “keeping her awake”. The official declined to comment on Friday.
But most of her report details Cobers’ alleged bullying.
“On an ongoing basis he made both private and public derogatory remarks against the female medical personnel. Examples of things he said were: ‘I’m not scared of you’, ‘I’m going to get you’, ‘You mean nothing to me’,” she wrote.
“In the beginning, [when I] asked for a chair and table to sit at to write my medical notes, he stated: ‘You will sit on the floor and you have done nothing all day; that’s right, you sit on the floor.’”
Schwabe also alleges that Cobers discriminated against both African and white team members.
“He loudly said that we must not let the whites beat our coloureds. Also, that the ‘coloureds’ are the only ones who are doing anything in Sascoc,” she wrote.
Cobers made “ongoing remarks” about an athletics official, saying she was a “typical lazy black person and that she is doing absolutely nothing”.
Schwabe also alleges in the report that as a “medical professional, I can state he was taking in alcohol on an ongoing basis in the [athletes] village” which “had a strict no-alcohol policy”.
“He was either drunk or hungover most of the time. This resulted in his extreme erratic behaviour and strange [WhatsApp] messages,” she wrote.
In addition, she alleges, Cobers harassed the chief physiotherapist to the extent that she “is still in an extreme state of stress after the Youth Olympic Games, after the abuse she had to endure”.
Schwabe claims Cobers publicly humiliated her throughout the games, even until they picked up their luggage on the airport carousel in Johannesburg. When she told him she had reported him to Sascoc head Gideon Sam, he allegedly responded: “Ag, f*** Gideon Sam.”
Hendricks said Sascoc followed internal human resources processes to resolve the matter because Cobers, his colleague and Schwabe were all staff members during the Youth Olympics Games.
“But Dr Schwabe wrote us an email indicating she did not intend any action to be taken by Sascoc, therefore she is withdrawing. She then said that she also did not want to be part of mediation,” Hendricks said.
Schwabe’s report comes 10 months after former Sascoc chief executive Tubby Reddy was dismissed on allegations of misconduct, including alleged sexual harassment of a woman employee.
The commission that compiled the ministerial inquiry report into matters of corporate governance into Sascoc, was not entirely pleased by how the sports body handled the sex claims against Reddy.
The commission, chaired by retired Judge Ralph Zulman, argued that the Sascoc board had dealt with the matter in “lackadaisical fashion”.
Reddy is challenging his dismissal at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.
His case will be heard in January.
