As with many other countries, South African athletes have depended on financial support from lottery funding to be able to train and compete internationally.

It was cited as a key factor in improved performance at recent Olympic Games, including a 10 medal haul at last year's event in Rio de Janeiro.

But SASCOC chief executive Tubby Reddy has announced that new regulations adopted by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF) could significantly change this.

One proposed change involves deeming all organisations ineligible to make funding applications for the next year after their last successful bid.

The second concerns the downgrading of SASCOC to the status of an "ordinary national sporting federation".

This would seemingly mean that SASCOC's funding would be capped at R5 million (£292,000/$380,000/€338,000) across two years - a huge reduction on current levels of support that has topped R100 (£5.8 million/$7.6 million/€6.7 million) over 12-month periods.

The NLC have since suggested that the second proposal highlighted by Reddy may not, in fact, be true.

But they have also revealed that funding will be stopped for events taking place outside South Africa.

"In previous years, SASCOC were funded for, among others, team preparation for international events," they told IOL news.

"National Federations of Sport were also funded for international events. 

"The new regulations do not make provision for activities outside the borders of South Africa.

"However, preparation and participation within South Africa would be available within the applications submitted."

Reddy claimed that the proposals may put SASCOC out of business in the next 12 months.

SASCOC President Gideon Sam claims to have already been in talks with the NLC before adding that he now plans to speak to Sports Minister Thembelani Nxesi.

"We agreed it would not be in the interests of South African sport, let alone SASCOC," he told TimesLIVE.

"I am confident [we can change their minds], otherwise we don't have sport."

He reportedly claimed that a funding shortage had already forced them to reduce the size of the team they will send to the Commonwealth Youth Games in The Bahamas in July.

It could threaten their complete participation at other events, it is feared.

The NLC claim to have a budget of around R2 billion (£116 million/$152 million/€135 million) to be shared between charities, sport and arts and culture.

They said in March that it had received applications for as much as 20 times that budget in funding each year.

South Africa's medal haul in Rio included golds for men's 400 metres runner Wayde van Niekerk and women's 800m counterpart Caster Semenya.

Chad le Clos won two swimming silver medals in the 100m butterfly and 200m freestyle events while Cameron van der Burgh secured a further title in the 100m breaststroke.

There was also a rowing silver for Lawrence Brittain and Shaun Keeling in the coxless pairs, a men's long jump silver for Luvo Manyonga, a women's javelin silver for Sunette Viljoen and bronze medals for the men's rugby sevens team and for Henri Schoeman in the men's triathlon.