Sports Minister Shock Announcement Transformation

An open letter to Fikile Mbalula

Dhirshan Gobind
Dear Fikile,

I would like to firstly state that as a non-white South African citizen, I am 100% enthusiastic about all non-whites getting equal and fair opportunities. Also, by logic, in no way do I feel or imply that non-whites are inferior and weaken our sports teams, being a person of colour myself. Hashim Amla, Tendai Mtawarira and Bryan Habana are my favourite athletes. Furthermore, being neither a generic black nor white person, it goes without saying that my views can only be taken objectively. As a freelance sports writer, I have written way too manypieces on this topic and am quite frankly tired of doing so but your latest acts have provoked me into penning once more. Transformation needs to be done the correct way!

I was deeply saddened and upset to hear your decision to revoke the privileges of four major sports federations – ASA, CSA, NSA and SARU – to host or bid for any major sporting event simply because they are too white. This is unethical and unacceptable! Your personal desires and implications are far worse than the Penny Sparrow and Gareth Cliff controversies in the media recently. You are supposed to be a role model.

How narrow-minded, short-sighted and indeed racist can one be? To make hasty decisions in the name of race is what tore our country apart in the first place. You tweeted that six codes including football and gymnastics have exceeded the set 60% charter generic black African target. The fact that you are blatantly serving the interests and supporting one specific race without any thought or regard for the other three main races of the country is astonishing and mind-boggling in this day and age! Do deserving white, Indian and coloured athletes not warrant any respect and opportunities as well? Must they be pushed aside simply to please statisticians?

I fully understand the demographic statistics of the country but that does not necessarily mean that every sporting team can, will or must adhere to this to a tee in terms of resource representation. It is not a very realistic goal. This dictatorial type of stance does not bode well for South African sport as a whole and will do more harm than good in terms of actual transformation.

By banning the various bodies from bidding and hosting major events, how will this serve the young generation of non-white athletes and harness their interest? How will grass-roots development be truly successful without the showcasing of superstars on our shores? How will these children feel knowing that they could be in a team simply because of the colour of their skin? You have openly threatened to withdraw government funding, withdrawing government’s recognition of the said federations, withdrawing the said federation’s opportunity to be awarded national colours via SASCOC to players who participate under the auspices of a federation in order to represent the Republic, withdrawing endorsements/sponsorships and terminating relationships with these bodies. Can you not see the negative that this will do, especially to generic black and non-white athletes? The implications are far-reaching and I cannot even fathom the above mentioned statements.

You state that you wish to “reconstruct the fragmented and deeply discriminatory sport and recreation landscape by establishing a unified sports system that is underpinned by the principles of democracy, equity, transparency, demographic representation, access and increased participation”. These are your very own words and correct me if I am wrong! Your latest actions simply offer the antithesis of the above statements. How do you plan on achieving equity, demographic representation et al when you are so vehemently opposed to whites in our teams? How can we reconstruct our sporting landscape when you are doing everything in your power to divide us along racial lines? You mention the term ‘discriminatory sport’ but are doing everything in your power to ensure this aspect remains within South African sporting echelons! Our national football team is made up of one race but SAFA were passed as a ‘successfully transformed federation’. I think you need to look up the term ‘transformation’ in the dictionary sir. Where is the equal representation among races in this team? I think this is called double standards. It is of no use showing disrespect and banning a body such as SARU (a federation that has brought us World Cups and enormous pride) and then wishing them well at Sandton Square on the eve of a World Cup!

I have a suggestion for you. How about you promote the future of transformation by bringing rugby, cricket and soccer to the SABC! How do you expect young non-white children from townships and rural areas to be interested in those sports if it is only available to the wealthy who can afford DSTV? Also, how about you focus on aspects of sport that demand attention? I hear there is an Olympic Games coming up . How about you put a plan in place to bring home some medals? How about you focus on ensuring pride in our sports by implementing winning strategies so that we can compete at World Cups? Instead of picking on how white our teams are. What next, will you ban Chad Le Clos from the Olympic 100m butterfly final and replace him with a random non-white swimmer? Where is the line drawn?

You are heading in the opposite direction of where the late great Nelson Mandela wanted the nation to go. To paraphrase, he stated that no man should be judged or picked on because of the colour of his skin and this is what you are doing currently. This is the very reason we were banned from the sporting world in the first place and I sincerely hope it happens again and that fans boycott matches. Kindly take a look at our national anthem which states “and united we shall stand” – you are simply dividing and no one man should have such power.

Regards,

Dhirshan Gobind and all upset South African sports fans

Dhirshan Gobind is a 30-something freelance sports columnist/writer and a UKZN alumnus with a degree in Marketing Management. He also has a tri-weekly column in ‘The Post

Instead of sending 10Million USD(210 Million Rand)for the Carribean kids to play football in the Bermuda Triangle-as we are left to believe,wouldn't it have been better utilised over here.
Seriously.I look at the crowds for the Rugby and Soccer and seriously worry abouj the liquidity of the big Unions in the not to distant future.

Frodo wrote: I am in favor of equal opportunity and all it entails, but I don't think I will ever be able to figure out why anybody can think it is 'right' that 50% of a team needs to be black (or white or pink or brown for that matter) even if those 50% are not good enough to be selected despite their race....in the same way I will never be able to understand why there is (as far as I'm aware) no such qualification as far as the football team is concerned.

The best players should be representing our country in all sports teams and that should be the bottom line. Making sure that players of all races get the opportunity to be good enough to represent their country surely does not rest with the relevant sporting bodies alone - should government not be 'penalizing' themselves for not creating the facilities needed to assist the 'previously disadvantaged' to reach their full potential in whichever sport they choose ?

Completely agree ....and the govt seem to ignore the fact that people have different preferences when it comes to sport .........I don't know what the figures are but if ,for example,only 10% of cricketers ,from any race,are members of registered cricket clubs,why should that not be the determining % if quotas are deemed necessary? The total population figures and percentages are misleading!

I have listened to the debates on radio in the last few days and think that the best solution for the affected unions is to ask government exactly what they want, implement it for a 2-4 year period and assess the results in terms of performance on the field, attendance at the grounds, TV viewership, sponsorship, etc...if all comes up successful, then all's good and we all continue to support excellence but if things come up pear-shaped then the unions can go back to government with the results and show that slow and steady was probably the correct route to follow...

Otherwise, this is never going to be resolved...if 12 non-whites must always be on the field for a rugby match or 8 non-whites must always be on the field for a cricket match and this results in better performing whites being on the outside, they can go and make their fortunes overseas while the 2-4 year experimentation takes place...

I'm a bit surprised that athletics was one of the affected unions...I would have thought that teams sports are more likely to be subject to transformation and not sports that have clear performance benchmarks to compete at an elite level eg. if you cannot run 400m in sub 44sec, it does not matter what your colour is...

It does not matter if they finish half the track behind the winner,just so long as they fill the numbers

Nobody remembers the ALSO RANS.

Our sport is full of teams that are heading down the ratings chart to the ALSO RANS section.

AUSTRALIA POPULATION 23 MILLION(2013) SA 53 MILLION(2013)

LATEST TEAM SPORTS RATINGS I COULD FIND:

AUSTRALIA SA

Rugby

2nd 3rd

Cricket

tests

1st 3rd

ODI's

1st 4th

T20

6th 5th

Womens Cricket

1st 6th

Hockey

1st 15th

Women

1st 15th

Soccer

50th 70th

Women

Neither make the top 50.

Netball

1st 5th

People will have different opinions,but why is it that Australia,with a population less than half the size of SA are currently better than us in every single major team sport.Both men and women.

I think it has absolutely everything to do with our administrators.

They are the major failing in SA sport!

This is all just mad to me I don't care what colour my sporting hero is Ali, Bolt etc they were just the best at specific sport and that's the end of the story.
I would guess if you are born in SA and u have a black dad he is going to through u a soccer ball and if you have a white Afrikaans dad he is going to throw u a rugby ball.
That is where the preference starts at home and it's logical to me that more kids play the game that you are brought up with and that more black kids prefer soccer and more white kids prefer rugby in SA.
If you were born in Brazil white or black u will get a football end of story.
If you were born in Scotland if u get thrown a cricket ball u would drop it !
I was thrown a soccer ball went to school that only could played rugby then went back to club soccer as soon as I could.
End of story does it really matter what colour u are to play or be the best u can for your team and country.

I need a chill pill or a JWB

Dave Scott wrote: This is all just mad to me I don't care what colour my sporting hero is Ali, Bolt etc they were just the best at specific sport and that's the end of the story.
I would guess if you are born in SA and u have a black dad he is going to through u a soccer ball and if you have a white Afrikaans dad he is going to throw u a rugby ball.
That is where the preference starts at home and it's logical to me that more kids play the game that you are brought up with and that more black kids prefer soccer and more white kids prefer rugby in SA.
If you were born in Brazil white or black u will get a football end of story.
If you were born in Scotland if u get thrown a cricket ball u would drop it !
I was thrown a soccer ball went to school that only could played rugby then went back to club soccer as soon as I could.
End of story does it really matter what colour u are to play or be the best u can for your team and country.

I need a chill pill or a JWB

those kids were/are lucky, my old man threw me a race card and told me to pick a jackpot

Funny enough Chicken my mum or dad never had a bet but my granny and grandad used to have a pub and my granny used to give me a piece of paper with coins in it and send me to a bucket shop to play her greyhounds and racing bets .
The times they are a changing

Sorry for changing a rather depressing thread .....


As you were saying Minister .....

TN, you could never implement something like that as you would lose a whole generation of sportsmen and woman for what an experiment ? An experiment which we all know what the outcome would be. Bankrupt unions, Bafana results, complete caos, a rebuild and 2-4 years lost.
Today sports are all professional, tell him to fuck-off. The only loss would be our national sides and then let them run those teams. Impliment a Kerry Packer type competition and by-pass the government/politics completely. Im sure if those sides have the best players the sporting public would support them.

What will ultimately happen neigh is that when the Aussies and ABs play the Boks they will rest most of their players for the bigger matches and still thrash them. The rest of the world have already sat up and taken note. SA were not included in the cricket discussions re world cups about 2 years ago already. India, Aus and England run the cricket now and soon England, Aus and NZ will be running the rugby. Would not be at all suprised to see SA drop out of the Rugby Championship within 5 years and be replaced by a NH combined team. Sad times ahead for SA sports fans. But on the otherhand if you enjoy your football team losing all the time against all and sundry then not too worry as friendly matches will be arranged against the likes of Germany, Brazil etc because the ANC says so.