‘Banned’ sports codes find straight and narrow

THREE of the four sporting codes banned from hosting international events earlier this year because they were not meeting transformation targets are on track to meet them by the end of this year, Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula has said.

This would allow SA Rugby, which has been shortlisted to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup, and Cricket SA, which has been offered the hosting of the T20 World Cup, to go ahead with these plans.

Mbalula said in response to a parliamentary question this week that netball, rugby and cricket forecast last month that they would achieve the pass rate required this month.

The figures will be submitted to the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) for verification. The EPG report rates the transformation efforts of the various sporting codes.

The 2014/15 report released this year found that just six sporting codes achieved 60% “generic black” representation in their senior national teams. African black representation was even lower.

The so-called “big five” codes — football, rugby, cricket, athletics and netball — all signed a memorandum of understanding with the minister to create a “transformation barometer” setting out their own transformation targets.

Mbalula said in his reply that six more federations would be included in the barometer system from next year.

The EPG found that netball had just 39% generic black representation on their senior teams, athletics 50%, cricket 45% and rugby 42%.

Mbalula’s spokesman Esethu Hassane said that the penalties imposed on the four codes only related to the year in which they didn’t meet targets, and provided the federations met the targets in the new report, the ban would be lifted.

“It is not forever, it lasts for that year. If the codes have met or gone beyond the targets, then the minister would lift the penalty.

“If they failed to meet it, then the minister will keep or maybe even increase the penalties.”

Hassane said the minister would not “judge the level of transformation just yet because at the moment there aren’t any conclusive evidence-based findings”.

Under the memorandum of agreement signed between the minister and the big five sporting codes, penalties could also include the withdrawal of funding and recognition of the sporting code. The minister could also withdraw political support for a sport, or prevent players from the code from being eligible for national colours.

SA Rugby management said earlier this year they had every intention of meeting the target and lifting the ban. The union told parliament two weeks ago that they had prepared and submitted a bid to host the 2023 World Cup with the permission of the minister, with the view that the ban would no longer be in place.

SA Rugby president Mark Alexander said they had exceeded their targets of 35% black players, and had reached 40%.

Cricket SA, meanwhile, introduced targets into the national team for the first time this year.

CSA CEO Haroon Lorgat said they had been “more aggressive" in pursuing transformation since 2013, but “it is fair to say the minister’s intervention made a lot more of our people focus on the transformation agenda”.

The Proteas’ teams have recently fielded several bright young stars including Themba Bavuma, Kagiso Rabada, Andile Phehlukwayo and Aaron Phangiso.

Lorgat said this was largely due to “well thought out cricket pipeline programmes.

SA Rugby had not responded to queries by the time of going to print.

Netball SA president Mimi Mthethwa said that the organisation had put together a plan “to address the gaps” after the minister announced they had not met their targets.

Mthethwa said they had realised their targets had originally been “unrealistic”.

One of the areas in which they had specifically been found lacking was in their alignment with school netball and this was an area they were focusing on.

“The minister has been very vocal in his support for netball and has never pushed for us to include a certain number of black players in our senior national team,” she said.

“We currently have four black players who are regulars in the national team and they are performing very well.

“We want players there who are able to compete at the highest level.

“The team we took to the Fast5 in October included about five or six black players and they were all able to compete and stand the pressure.”

Mthethwa added that she had met with and drawn up a barometer for each province and their early draft for submission to the EPG for the next report showed “we are on the right track”. OVERSEEING TRANSFORMATION: Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula