South Africa’s men and women’s sides earned a place at this year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro after winning their respective African Championships in November.

SASCOC, however, insists on strict qualification criteria and believes the continental route is not good enough.

“At the beginning I think it was a political issue, that is my personal feeling,” Negre, was quoted as saying while he was attending the Hockey Writers’ Club annual lunch, writes Liam Morgan on the insidethegames website.

“I think after [Nelson] Mandela, they still think of hockey as a white sport.

“The National Federation perhaps didn’t do much to attract black people to play hockey and maybe that is the feeling of SASCOC.

Negre believed the FIH qualification criteria was more than adequate for teams to book their spot in the competition.

“We create a very nice system of qualification – quality through the World League and through the continental events and the pity is that SASCOC don’t accept the criteria.

“We were of course very disappointed. I feel shame and pity for the South Africans and I was supporting them from the beginning.