Sports transformation well on track – report

An eagerly awaited report on transformation in South African sport showed that empowerment was taking place in differing sporting codes, Sport and Recreation Minister Tokozile Xasa said yesterday.

“At a governance and decision-making level, the report shows that more than half, 60% of federations audited, have elected black presidents into position, whereas almost 70% have reported the election of boards that are more than 50% black,” Xasa said at a media briefing shortly after officially receiving the 2018 Transformation in Sport report compiled by the Eminent Persons Group (EPG).

Women representation at board level has also been shown to be improving in that seven out of 19 federations have reported female representation at board level, larger than prescribed by the [Transformation] Charter.”

On demographic representation, Xasa said national senior male teams of athletics, cricket, football, volleyball, boxing and table tennis have all achieved the charter target with netball, chess, gymnastics, hockey and rugby “moving in the right direction to achieve this interim milestone”.

“Year-on-year change in the black demographic profile of senior representative teams demonstrates the progress made over a short period.

“Cricket’s percentage black profile has improved from 45 to 60%, hockey from 20 to 45%, whereas rugby has moved from 34 to 42% and netball from 37 to 56%,” she said.

“The detailed report shows that transformation as measured in terms of the five dimensions of the Transformation Charter is taking place, proving once again the value of Hewlett Packard’s adage that ‘only those things that get measured get done’.”

SA Rugby yesterday welcomed the successful achievement of its targets in the latest EPG report.

Rugby showed a 17% improvement to achieve 60% of the targets agreed with the sport and recreation South Africa (SRSA) department and the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc). The EPG sets a minimum target of 50% achievement as the measure of successful compliance.

“Rugby is succeeding in the transformation process and we’re pleased with the outcomes of the EPG report,” said Jurie Roux, chief executive of SA Rugby.

“We’re proud of the fact that rugby was the top performing federation from the five sports that were part of the pilot project in terms of transformation – we have worked hard to achieve our targets. We remain on track to deliver on our five-year strategic transformation plan, which we launched in 2015.”