Open Letter to the SA Minister of Sport – Do the honourable thing

In this well articulated letter to the South African Minister of Sport – Minister Mthethwa – Ian Watson delves into the structural issues that have plagued South African sport since democracy, with the tipping point being South Africa’s poor showing at the Tokyo Olympic games. Minister Mthethwa intends to head up an enquiry into the poor performance of the South African Olympic team, with transformation targets being one of the main reasons for heading up the probe. South Africa’s tainted history has made selection of sports teams one of the most contentious in the world, with every professional sports outfit having to meet transformation targets. Every team selection is scrutinised because in nearly all cases, teams are not being selected purely on merit. This leads to teams not performing at their full potential and an array of related issues that come with poor performance. Below, Ian Watson puts pen to paper on a truly honest, yet rational open letter on the topic to the Minister. – Justin Rowe-Roberts

Open Letter to the South African Minister of Sport

By Ian Watson*

Dear Honourable Minister Mthethwa,

I have read the article attributed to you, where you stated that you intend heading up an enquiry into the poor performance of the South African team at the Tokyo Olympics and the imbalance of the team in terms of transformation targets and the country’s demographics.

I would hope that it is not necessary to point out to you that performing at the Olympics is the ultimate test for most sportsmen and women. Based on performance alone they are required to meet stringent qualification criteria. The Olympic Committee is simply not interested in South Africa’s transformation or quota policies – all that matters is that athletes are required to meet a qualification standard.

In simple language the Olympic games are open to anybody, regardless of race, creed or conviction, who is good enough to compete on the Olympic stage.

It is neither a lack of transformation nor imbalanced demographics that are the reasons behind South Africa’s abject failure at the Tokyo Olympics, and it is time that you and your cohorts come to terms with that.

Whilst I am opposed to transformation and demographics, a study of the team, and the demographics surrounding each discipline, is quite revealing. Our team participated in nineteen disciplines – of these nineteen, the athletes in nine of the disciplines contained only white members.

You will probably react in shock to this statistic, but these nine disciplines are sports in which athletes of colour do not traditionally participate, and this is a worldwide norm.

Whilst this might reflect in an imbalance in the team, cognisance must surely be given to the reasons behind this?

Of the other ten disciplines, there were seventy-eight athletes of colour and sixty-seven white athletes. It must be pointed out that in the combined water polo teams of twenty-six members, there were only five athletes of colour. If the water polo numbers are excluded from the ten disciplines containing athletes of colour, taken that water polo is not a sport traditionally favoured by athletes of colour, there were seventy-three athletes of colour and forty-six white athletes. This “transforms” the overall impression totally.

For over twenty-five years you and your numerous predecessors have been too busy preaching and advocating transformation and quotas to realise that the standard of most sports in the country have been plummeting to levels where it is almost an embarrassment for most teams to appear on the world stage. There are exceptions of course, and rugby and golf spring immediately to mind.

Since the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro there have been three ministers of sport, viz Messrs. Mbalula, Nxesi and yourself. It is an unfortunate fact that not one of your predecessors, nor yourself, made an effort to establish the true reasons behind South Africa failing to produce world-class athletes across all sporting disciplines. It was far easier for you to preach transformation and quotas because you would then be appeasing the political requirements of your appointment.

It is five years too late for you to be directing an enquiry at the 2020/1 Olympic team. What are you trying to achieve by doing so? All you are doing, yet again, is wasting time and resources on something that has already happened and, whatever your findings, you will not be able to make positive, proactive decisions.

If you are going to continue using the word “transformation”, it is time for you to use it in your ministry. Transform your ministry, transform the mindset of all employees in your ministry, transform your mission statement into one of encouraging and funding the promotion of sporting excellence in South Africa. Give every single South African the opportunity of excelling and do away with the idiocy of forced transformation and demographic representation.

You should rather be doing something useful, looking at the sporting nurseries throughout the country, the facilities, systems and programmes in place to identify talented sportsmen and women and to nurture them through the very vital stages of growth and development. I am positive that, with very few exceptions, you will find that there is a distinct and embarrassing lack of government-funded nurseries for our sporting youth.

Before you say that your ministry has limited funding and cannot afford sporting nurseries and development programmes, I would ask if you, your predecessors and your ministry have studied the programmes that are operating so successfully in countries such as Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia, where conveyor belts of world-class athletes continue to be produced, in spite of limited budgets. Why is it possible in those countries, but not in South Africa?

It saddens me to recognise that the political and moral decay in South Africa, particularly over the last ten years, has had an impact on developing sportsmen and women. South Africans as a whole had a reputation of being hard-working, determined, industrious, energetic, world-class, but this has changed to one where the moral decay of South African society has led to a culture of laziness, expectancy and reward with minimal effort.

I challenge you to name the current-day sportsmen who can stand up to Ntsoelengoe,  Sono, Radebe, Mofokeng, Khumalo, Dladla, Maponyane, Motswarateu, Temane, Thugwane, Sepeng, Thys, Mtolo, Makatini, Matlala, Thobela, Baloyi and Malinga.

What made these athletes excel? What facilities were they afforded to reach the standards and levels that they did? What has changed?

All of the above, and there are many more who can be added to the list, had talent and ability to succeed. The fact that they did was due to their high moral fibre and dedication to succeed, together with good coaching and sensible training programmes. What has changed? Why has South Africa’s sports development conveyor belt ground to a terribly uncomfortable and embarrassing stop?

In 1996, one year after democracy, South Africa won the Africa Cup of Nations. Since then, the standard of soccer has deteriorated to a point where our world ranking has plummeted and the team struggles to even qualify for competitions in Africa.

Why is that? Have you and your ministry ever called for an enquiry into this? Or will you allow soccer to meander along on its path of mediocrity because it is “transformed”?

Diametrically opposite the performance of soccer, South African rugby has prospered, winning three Rugby World Cups and two British Lions series since 1995. Have you and your ministry studied the rugby model to establish whether it could be adapted and used in other sports disciplines? I somewhat doubt it.

It is patently clear that you, as the minister of sport, are responsible for the collapse of South African sport and the dismal performance of South African sporting teams across most of the disciplines. Your fixation around imposing policies relative to transformation and demographics have contributed greatly to this.

The country was horrified to hear that there was no fixed policy in place to reward medal-winning athletes. Your silence and Sascoc’s bumbling attempt to cover up their inefficiency is an embarrassment and a kick in the teeth for the two athletes who won medals. At least before previous Olympics an announcement was made of the incentives offered to athletes for winning medals. Are the interests of South African athletes really that important to you and Sascoc?

Lastly, will you and Sascoc disclose to the country how many sports ministry and Sascoc officials travelled to the Tokyo Olympics and at what cost?

You have been an abject failure as the Minister of Sport. You and your ministry have failed the athletes of this country, young and old, aspiring for excellence and recognition or just keen. You and your ministry have failed the people of South Africa, every single one of us, whether we are sports lovers or not.

When will you acknowledge this and resign from your position and allow somebody better qualified, with the interests of all sports men and women at heart, to pick up the pieces of a broken ministry and start working for all current and future athletic stars rather than for their own personal and political gain?

Do the honourable thing Minister, resign!

Yours sincerely,

In the interests of South African sport,

Ian Watson

  • Ian Watson is 66 and lives in Gordon’s Bay. He played representative cricket in his younger days, is an accountant by profession, an avid reader and has been a sports fanatic all his life.

Read also: 

Visited 2,833 times, 2 visit(s) today