Sports reporting isn’t exactly up there with detailing soldiers’ efforts from the front line in Afghanistan, but that’s not to say it isn’t fraught with dangers of its own.

Graeme Joffe had a long and successful career, both here at home and abroad, although things took a turn for the worse in the past few years. It appears Joffe upset some of South Africa’s top brass and was forced to take drastic action. Sport24 reports:

‘I was about to go to sleep in my apartment in Grahamstown. My phone was on silent, but after three calls in quick succession, something told me to answer it. Just as well I did. The call was from an acquaintance, who said: “Graeme, they’re coming to get you, get to a place of safety, don’t go to any public places, get out of your apartment. Call me if you need any help”’, Joffe wrote.

Without hesitation, Joffe packed an overnight bag, drove to a friend’s house and soon thereafter abandoned the car and removed the SIM card and battery from his cellphone.

So why was he so certain that his acquaintance’s warning was to be heeded? Joffe says he received ‘abusive and threatening messages from the Department of Sport and Recreation’, as well as being subjected to a R21,1 million defamation lawsuit from the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) that sought to ‘bully and silence’ him.

A quick bit of Googling reveals a site called Graeme Joffe Exposed that attempts to rubbish these claims (HERE), but it looks at best an amateur effort and at worst an attempt to discredit an established journalist with a slew of mud-slinging and defamatory claims.

I guess it depends on who you are willing to believe, the South African government or one man who packed up and left the country of his birth because he says he feared for his life.

If I was a betting man I know where I would be throwing my money.

[source:sport24]