Sport and Recreation Minister Ngconde Balfour has warned he will consider introducing laws to enforce transformation in South African sport if more progress is not made soon.
Speaking during debate on his budget vote in the National Assembly on Tuesday, Balfour said he believed the image the country presented to the world at the moment, especially in terms of representivity, was ”not a good one”.
”While our flags that fly in the sports arenas of the world generate considerable pride and serve as a good marketing tool for our country, spectators are still left confused when our teams charge onto the field… about whether it is a team from Europe or one from Africa.
”Very often, European teams are more integrated than teams from our country. Surely this must be an indictment to all of us who are committed to a new South Africa based on inclusiveness, equality and fairness.”
Balfour said he hoped this year to launch investigations — along the lines of the one that looked into the United Cricket Board’s statement on transformation in cricket last year — into representivity in other sports.
Transformation remained non-negotiable, and there would be no compromise.
”I have resisted the pressure and urge to legislate on the matter, but my patience is being stretched to the limit and I might be forced, in the near future, to consider the option seriously.
”I hope that I will never have to take that step. National Federations have an agreement with government with regard to development, transformation and representivity that I expect them to honour.
”I shall be watching their performances relative to the Transformation Charter very closely.
”Of course, I have taken cognisance and laud the efforts of certain federations who have committed themselves to the cause, and whose teams are reflecting our society more adequately.”
Balfour said he was convinced the imminent release of the ”Sports Transformation Charter” would bring the country back on course to ensure rapid movement from the entrenched racial, gender and spatial rigidities of the past.
The Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Donald Lee said sport had become a ”political tool” under the African National Congress (ANC).
The relationship between South Africans and sport was ”unbreakable”.
”Sport is our love and our passion. Our teams are built around our heroes. Their success is mirrored in our pride, their failure in our despair.
”Through sport we have learnt to battle each other and emerge united and to take on the world and emerge victorious. It is a common goal toward which we all strive and a single triumph through which we all celebrate. The ANC has taken this away from us,” he said.
”Under the ANC, our sport is no longer about what we can achieve, or what we can take pride in. Under the ANC sport has become a political tool. The ANC has replaced development with quotas and it has replaced merit with race. We are no better off now, than we were under apartheid.”
By prioritising racial representivity ahead of talent and ability the ANC had shifted the sporting emphasis away from being the best, toward being the most demographically representative, he said. – Sapa