Cedric van Wyk is a long-serving, senior Western Province Athletics (WPA) and Athletics South Africa (ASA) technical official who appears to be scamming athletes and administrators, including other WPA officials. Van Wyk advertised an all-inclusive World Athletics (WA) endorsed trip from Cape Town to Botswana for the World Relay Championships. The trip was bogus and never materialised. However, a WPA Disciplinary Committee found that his alleged fraud was a “private contractual dispute”. Van Wyk is therefore free to continue running scams in the Western Cape as long as he is careful not to use WPA logos and letterheads. World Athletics logos, on the other hand, are fair game.
One of van Wyk’s victims, Tony Abrahams, contacted me in frustration. He did everything right and followed the correct process but is still left exasperated as WPA washed their hands of any responsibility in the matter.
Van Wyk started aggressively marketing the World Relays tour package in the second half of 2025. He claimed, “Our club is doing this promotion with World Athletics”. Van Wyk is the chairman of his club and promised, “We, the SPAAC [South Peninsula Amateur Athletics Club], are currently liaising with a Botswana tour company and the organizing committee of the Championships”.
His club includes the word “Amateur” in the title and, true to form, van Wyk created two very amateurish promotional videos to assist with the marketing. They are available below for your viewing pleasure.
The total cost of the supposed tour package was R8400 promising, “World Athletics tickets for Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd” and included “bed and breakfast rooms sharing, high luxury bus transport from Cape Town to Gaborone, five day stay a 3 star hotel, visiting a game reserve and a diamant (sic) mine museum sight seeing tour of different locales in and around the capital.”
Van Wyk further enticed his prospective marks with a special “payment plan for teachers and administrators.” This provided four non-refundable instalments over several months. The bank account provided was that of SPAAC adding further credibility to van Wyk’s promised package.
As a keen athlete, supporter and chairman of the Casuarina Athletics Club, Abrahams jumped at the opportunity and excitedly booked tickets for himself and his son. Sadly, what should have been a once in a lifetime father and son experience never materialised.
Abrahams contacted the WPA office in May 2026 providing details of the apparent travel fraud. However, no action was taken until an escalation email was sent on 13 June where Abrahams demanded that the matter be referred to the WPA Disciplinary Committee under the threat that, “If no formal reply is received within 3 working days I will lay formal criminal charges, institute civil proceedings at Wynberg court and inform Athletics South Africa.”
WPA general manager, Lionel Samuels, replied two days later saying, “Your concern was sent to Mr C Van Wyk, and a commitment was made to repay back the money.” According to my sources at WPA, Samuels and van Wyk are close friends. Abrahams did receive R2,000 back from van Wyk in April when the trip was formally cancelled but no further money has been paid back despite assurances from the WPA general manager.
Abrahams stuck to his guns and persisted in his demands for a formal disciplinary hearing to be held. On 9 September Abrahams sent another in a long list of follow-up emails to Samuels, “Good morning Lionel. I trust you are well. Im still waiting on the outcome of DC.”
Later that afternoon he eventually received the below report, dated 30 August 2026. The finding was, “This is a private contractual dispute. On the material provided there is no indication that federation funds were involved or that the trip was an official WPA activity. Failure to deliver a privately arranged tour is a matter for the parties (and, if necessary, the civil or criminal courts.”
An exasperated Abrahams replied, “I hereby give formal notice of my intention to inform World Athletics, Athletic South Africa and the media.” He contacted me a short while later.
When I chatted to Abrahams, he explained that van Wyk is a prominent and trusted figure in the Western Cape running community, “Cedrick van Wyk is on the WPA Track & Field Commission, Coaches Commission and is also on the Athletic South Africa Coaches Commission.” Van Wyk is a former WPA Track & Field Chairperson and is viewed as “the most senior coach within the WPA province”.
Van Wyk is also a certified ASA Level 3 coach. This is the highest domestic ASA coaching level possible and is aimed at high-performance and national-level coaches. Abrahams told me that when he did his own Level 2 coaching certification, van Wyk was his mentor and facilitator.
Unfortunately it looks like van Wyk, a retired schoolteacher, has abused this position of trust within the running community and is now being protected by WPA.
Another person who fell for the Botswana World Relays scam was Michelle Joseph, who is a technical official and serves on the WPA Cross Country Commission. Joseph sent the below letter to the WPA board.
When I spoke with Joseph, she explained that she had only paid R4,000 of the deposit and refused to pay any more when she got suspicious after asking for the itinerary and it was not forthcoming. Eventually, a week before the trip was due to take place, van Wyk formally cancelled the trip claiming that the main sponsor had pulled out.
Joseph then started repeatedly emailing van Wyk to get her money back and copied WPA into all correspondence. She received R2,000 back but the final R2,000 was only refunded when Joseph involved lawyers.
Asked about the experience, Joseph said, “I was really excited as I’ve never been to a World Champs. I saved up my money. How can you do this to people who really trust you? To me Cedric van Wyk is a skelm.”
Both Abrahams and Joseph expressed surprise that refunds, when they were made, came from van Wyk’s personal bank account and not the SPAAC bank account into which they had originally transferred the deposits.
Joseph said that she had directly approached Wesley Neumann, SPAAC club secretary, asking him to intervene and resolve the situation but he refused, saying that van Wyk planned the trip alone and that the club was not going to interfere.
I approached van Wyk with a set of questions which he refused to answer. Instead he referred me to the WPA general manager Lionel Samuels with the deflection, “Dear sir, I do not know in which capacity you are acting as my communications on this matter is through my club directly to the WPA office manager.”
However, Samuels (reportedly a close friend of van Wyk), refused to be drawn into any discussion on the matter and also refused to answer my questions around the disciplinary process and WPA’s seeming reluctance to address what appears to be blatant fraud from one of their senior officials. All I was able to obtain was the statement, “I have noted the contents of your email and for obvious reasons , I am in no position to comment.”
In the meantime, Abrahams has laid a formal complaint with the World Athletics Integrity Unit and is in the process of laying fraud charges with SAPS. Joseph has insisted that her letter about van Wyk’s travel scam is placed on record with WPA “so that if and when anything happens in future it can be referred to [in the next disciplinary hearing against van Wyk]”.
I am sure that Joseph’s letter will come in handy at some stage in the future and, if and when Cedric van Wyk pulls his next scam, you can be sure to read about it first on www.runningmann.com.
Afterword
Whilst investigating this article I was reminded of Allen Barnes, the WPA official who disappeared after last being spotted in Grand West Casino and was later arrested in Gauteng for fraud. I wondered what happened to him after the arrest which rabbit holes into this article: What happened to Allen Barnes the WPA Finance Officer bust for fraud?
In that article I mentioned, “Whilst investigating the alleged travel fraud committed by another senior WPA official, Cedric van Wyk, I was reminded of the Barnes affair…” This sentence prompted van Wyk to reinitiate contact with me in the form of a veiled legal threat:
“Dear Stuart, l take it for granted that you the writer of the article in running man. I far as l am concern l have never spoken to you not have you a y idea of what transpired, yet you called the event as a fraud. No information concerning the events means baseless accusation. I have to clear my name and will be seeking legal advise of steps to following after the printed article against you and your news article.”
I politely replied, “Morning Cedric, please scroll up and check your email. I have sent you a detailed set of questions on your alleged fraud. I am happy to include your explanations in the article if you provide them.”
Whilst this did not elicit any actual answers to my detailed set of questions, I did get the following response, “Dear sir, this matter is being handled by our club with the WPA and the said individual. You will be informed of the outcome. Thank you for the interest.”
It’s a pleasure Cedric.
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