The Partial Payment Promised to Unpaid Soweto Marathon Winners Has Stalled

Joseph Seutloali won the Soweto Marathon on Nov. 29, 2025, in 2:20:09, a result that gave the Lesotho runner a Two Oceans and Soweto double in the same year. He has yet to see any of the prize money that came with it. Marathon Handbook reported in the spring that the race’s podium finishers had not been paid, and that the organizers’ early explanation, that they were waiting on doping results, had been rejected by South Africa’s drug-testing agency, which said it handed those results over in mid-January.

At the end of July, Central Gauteng Athletics (CGA), the provincial body that sanctions the race, said it would put roughly R740,000 ($45,000) of money left over from the 2024 edition toward the unpaid athletes as a stopgap. Two months later that money is still sitting with the Gauteng Sports Confederation, Daily Maverick reported on Sept. 29, and CGA general manager Mandla Radebe said the confederation had not explained the hold-up.

In all, the athletes are owed about R1.2 million ($73,000). Seutloali’s share as men’s champion is R250,000 ($15,200). Gerda Steyn, the Comrades Marathon great who was third in the women’s race on her Soweto debut, and Onalenna Khonkhobe, third among the men, are each waiting on R90,000 ($5,500). Andrew Booyens, who coaches Seutloali, and Pio Mpolokeng, Khonkhobe’s coach, said neither CGA nor the race organizer, the Soweto Marathon Non-Profit Company, had been in touch with them directly. They found out about the partial payment plan by reading about it in the press.

Hollywood Athletics Club had already had enough by March. Its runners took the top three places in the men’s race and third in the women’s, and team manager Manfred Seidler said then that the club would not return. “I’m not taking my athletes back there. We won’t go back. I simply don’t trust them,” he told TimesLive. In May, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie said the government would temporarily take over the race and use departmental money to pay the athletes if it came to that, Daily Maverick reported at the time. The athletes are still waiting on that, too.

Stan Itshegetseng, a spokesperson for the Soweto Marathon Trust, says the R740,000 belongs to the trust and “cannot be touched or dealt with without the trust’s authority.” CGA stripped the trust of control in 2023, citing governance problems. A company, Soweto Marathon Pty Ltd, staged the 2023 and 2024 editions before the non-profit company took over for 2025 with nine of the township’s 11 athletics clubs behind it. The trust has never accepted any of that and still regards itself as the race’s rightful owner.

“While the athletes deserve to be paid for services rendered and prizes won, it is unreasonable to shift responsibility to the Soweto Marathon Trust when it neither organised nor sanctioned the race and had expressly warned everyone of the legal and governance risks,” Itshegetseng said.

The Comrades Marathon has had its own break with the sport’s governing bodies this year, cutting ties with Athletics South Africa and its KwaZulu-Natal affiliate and opening entries for its 100th running without an ASA license.

African Bank, the race’s title sponsor, said it met every term of its contract, rights fees included, and that paying the winners fell to the organizer. “African Bank wishes to emphasise that it has met all its contractual obligations; it is regrettable that the current situation is not resolved,” the bank said. Radebe put CGA’s view just as plainly: “CGA’s position remains that athletes should not be prejudiced by the governance issues and must receive their payment.”

Entries for a 2026 Soweto Marathon have not opened, even though some race listings online still carry it, and CGA said it cannot confirm it will sanction a 2026 edition until the governance issues are settled. African Bank said it has no sponsorship contract in place for one.