Ministry clams up on Games requests

Sports bodies asking to be treated like soccer are ignored

● You get soccer and then you get all the other sports, and it doesn’t seem that the government views them as equals.

When the SA Football Association (Safa) ran to the sport ministry last week to complain that their two soccer teams had been omitted for the African Games in Morocco, government responded like Flash Gordon.

Acting sport minister Thoko Didiza instructed the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) to include the men’s under-20 and women’s national teams.

Hurdles had to be jumped and late entry penalties paid at $2,000 per team, or more than R60,000 in total. All extra costs are for Safa’s account.

Ministry forced Sascoc’s hand

Sascoc, struggling with funding after the Lotto tightened the purse strings, had initially limited selection only to codes that could qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Sascoc made the decision in June and not all federations were happy with it, especially those that had invested in qualifying or preparing their athletes for the Games.

Many of those excluded codes also had strong medal potential, like snooker, gymnastics and fencing.

After the ministry forced Sascoc’s hand to send soccer, the umbrella body told the other federations that they could apply to the ministry for permission to go too, as long as they paid their own way.

At least two federations fired off requests — gymnastics and fencing.

The same ministry that claimed to have overruled Sascoc in the “greater interest of the [soccer] players”, among other reasons, didn’t even reply.

“No response from the minister,” one gymnastics official told the Sunday Times on WhatsApp. “And now it’s too late to send our team.”

A fencing administrator told the same story. “We have essentially given up.”

The gymnastics and fencing competitions begin tomorrow.

The Games end on Saturday.

Perhaps the interests of fencers and gymnasts don’t match those of soccer players.

By yesterday morning the ministry hadn’t replied to Sunday Times questions that were sent on Tuesday.

How many federations had approached the ministry? How many had been accepted or rejected?

There was no response either to a followup

Our medical team was for the 113 athletes and will be unable to cope with additionals Qondisa Ngwenya Sascoc official

question: why were sports bodies being ignored?

The athletes’ village in Morocco had accommodated the two soccer teams, but had since been filled to capacity, said senior Sascoc official Qondisa Ngwenya.

The soccer players, not entitled to Team SA kit, wore Safa apparel and were not eligible for the $20 per diem to Team SA athletes.

The football teams travelled with their own medical staff.

“Our medical team was designed for the 113 athletes and will be unable to cope with any additionals so they [would] have to bring their own medical team,” said Ngwenya.

Some federations are annoyed that Sascoc had not applied for ministerial permission on their behalf.

Others felt Sascoc should have invited them to apply for ministerial permission before last Saturday afternoon.

But Ngwenya said this wasn’t possible. Sascoc waited until the local organising committee had cleared Safa’s late entry. Acting before that would have been “unwise”.