EMMA THOMASSON, Johannesburg | Friday 9.35am
THE government ruled out race quotas for national sports teams on Thursday despite the paucity of blacks representing South Africa five years after the end of apartheid.
New Sports Minister Ngconde Balfour said he will not bring legislation to force national sports federations to adopt quotas but added he expects each code to formulate their own plans and targets to promote more black players.
”At national level the system that all of them [the sports federations] and myself have agreed upon is a merit system,” Balfour told parliament’s sports committee. ”Players who have got into national teams should always feel they have got there because they have earned it,” he said. ”They represent their country because they have capacity to be there. There are not to be quotas at all.”
Balfour, who took over as minister after elections in June, said he wants to meet national sports bodies this month to seek their formal commitment to transforming that aspect of sport.
His conciliatory approach is in marked contrast to that of his predecessor Steve Tshwete — now Safety and Security Minister — who threatened to introduce quotas if national bodies did not do something about their ”lily-white” teams.
”My approach is to assist rather than to intervene,” Balfour said. ”We are not looking for the coach to sit with a calculator and say there should be two Zulus, one Indian and two coloureds. That’s stupid.”
Tshwete’s relations with sports bodies hit a low point last year when the South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) dragged former President Nelson Mandela to court over a government probe into racism in the sport.
Since then both rugby and cricket, still dominated by white players at the national level, have made efforts to promote more blacks and both have introduced race quotas for their provincial leagues this season. — Reuters