Less talk, more action

Sports Minister Thulas Nxesi made a worrying concession this week at the announcement of SA’s team to travel to the Commonwealth Games in April.

Nxesi said the nation “can’t be happy” with the composition of the team heading to the Games in Australia, as it was not “a true representation of South Africa”.

Of course, this was not the first time we heard a sports minister complaining about the make-up of a Team SA going to an international tournament.

It has been the same, monotonous song since the advent of our democracy in 1994, with promises of “transformation” from sporting federations proving to be all talk and little action.

Nxesi’s predecessor, Fikile Mbalula, even went to the extent of “banning” certain federations for their failure to transform, insisting they won’t be allowed to bid to host international tournaments.

But in the end all that proved to be cheap talk, with the so-called ban lifted a few months later and the SA Rugby Union allowed to submit a bid to host the next World Cup in 2023. Thankfully, that bid was defeated by France.

Nxesi has to prove he’s different by acting on his own words.

“We have [transformation] targets, but every year we shift on that,” he conceded.

The minister needs to be more bold in implementing these targets, and not moan when a team that doesn’t reflect the demographics is sent to represent the country. While we are encouraged to see Nxesi showing more enthusiasm for his job than initially, we are not moved by his rhetoric on transformation until we see real, tangible progress.