FRANK DICK, unceremoniously eased out of the chairmanship of scottishathletics three years ago, has been head-hunted by three of the most powerful figures in South African sport.

The one-time Scottish and UK director of coaching has been recruited as performance consultant to the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC). His role is to advise on all sports "in reality, probably about 10 in all", he said yesterday.

President of the European Coaches Association, Dick is in constant demand worldwide. Having presided over a perceived golden age in both Scottish and UK athletics, he is widely sought as a highly-paid motivational speaker. Yet his cavalier rejection by Scotland suggests he is something of a prophet without honour at home.

He was invited to Australia, China, USA, Canada, South Africa, Israel, and Finland to discuss their Olympic debrief and review process. "The last step towards Rio should be your first towards Tokyo. Before you go into anything, you are preparing to learn first."

His contract runs to the end of the Olympics - 10 weeks this year and perhaps four months next year. South Africa's embraces aspirations for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. "They are not naive. They are preparing for next year's Olympics, but two years after that is the Gold Coast Commonwealths, then the Tokyo Olympics. But there is a very real possibility of the Commonwealths going to Durban in 2022.

"Discussions are not just with current athletes and coaches, but about building a different approach across all sports to help them make the jump over the next seven years.

"There are 33 Olympic aspirants and 34 Paralympic ones. The Olympic Excellence programme is much the same as in the UK, supporting athletes, setting up core support around them. I need to interview them all, and their coaches, to establish what is in place and what they need to move forward."

At Glasgow 2014, South Africa won 3 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze (Scotland 1-2-1), with 400m hurdles champion Cornell Fredericks their star performer. Their men featured 32 times in the Commonwealth top 20 last year (Scotland 11). The Republic's women made it into the top 20 just eight times (Scotland 13).

"That was a huge achievement," says Dick. "It's taking a lot of time to access the townships. There is no point finding talent if you can't support them. You can't leave them there. You have to move them to where coaches are, and that takes a budget. So what they did in Glasgow was remarkable."

He speaks of enormous untapped potential. "Talent-spotting in the townships is part of the programme. The talented athlete side has to reach into the townships. Close to Namibia there are some fantastic endurance runners, so there are going to be programmes there, and on the Natal side some very strong, tall athletes. We need to tap into them more effectively, for all sports. They are desperate to access more potential, and realise it."

Does he regret that he is not doing this in his own country?

"Obviously, but you have to get asked. South Africa invited me. I am not going to knock on somebody's door and say: 'Please can you use me?' Scotland had that opportunity, and decided it was not worth it.

"Am I bitter? No. Would I like to have had a bigger role in Scotland? Yes. Maybe I made a fundamental error in ever thinking I should be a chair of anything. I did say: 'Are you sure? You know what I am like. I push very hard.'"

Or, as he previously told me: "If they thought they were getting a pussy cat, they were wrong. They got a rottweiler."

On reflection last night, he said: "There are always other ways, maybe more diplomatic ways, and I am not a very diplomatic person. I could see where things needed to be addressed head-on, because you could not waste time and wait for another generation to come through, because another generation was going to lose the opportunity of a lifetime. You have to act fast.

"The real difficulty is there is rarely one agenda; there are several. And in a small country like Scotland you can't afford that. You can't have personal agendas. That has to stop, or Scotland won't be as strong as it could be. You need to have one agenda, sign up to it, and follow through."

The trio responsible for recruiting him were Gideon Sam, president of SASCOC, its chief executive Tubby Reddy, and Sam Ramsamy, who helped orchestrate the exclusion of South Africa from international sport. Ramsamy was chairman of the South Africa non-racial Olympic Committee and many saw his hand in the boycott of Edinburgh's Commonwealth Games. When the ban on the ANC was lifted, Ramsamy became president of the Republic's Olympic Committee. He is now vice-president of FINA and a member of the International Olympic Committee.

"They are more on the same page than in some of my experiences in the past," said Dick.

Including Scotland?

"I think there were political agendas that I did not fully understand, and by the time I did, it was too late."

Scotland's loss is South Africa's gain.