FEATURE: The DA today released a statement severely criticising the Minister of Sport for the amount to be spent on the 2013 South African Sports Awards ceremony. But, while the total has increased, the amount of public money allocated has actually decreased. The DA seems to have ignored this fact, however, and slammed the Minister regardless. It’s a good example of bad news triumphing over good and a disingenuous position as a result.
FEATURE: Much has been made of Trevor Manuel’s recent comments on apartheid and whether or not it constitutes a valid excuse for poor service delivery. One area relevant to the debate, on which Manuel has been very outspoken in the past but did not address in his speech, is quotas in sport. In 2005 he set out his views in an exchange of letters with DA MP Donald Lee. I have set them all out in this article. Thus, one question perhaps worth putting to Manuel today, is whether or not he still thinks they are necessary.
FEATURE: Cricket South Africa has recently announced it will appointing a new national selector not on merit, but on their race: they must be black. Not only are quotas anathema to professional sport in general and excellence in particular but, for the most part, South African sport seems to have moved beyond demographic representivity; at least, that is what the Minister says. But CSA seems trapped in the past and, with that, held hostage by the antiquated thinking of Thabo Mbeki.
FEATURE: Trevor Manuel, like Thabo Mbeki before him, is no stranger to mispresentation in order to try and make his point. In 2009 he took issue with a number of critics who suggested that Springbok coach Pieter de Villiers was not up to the job, acussing them, effectively, of racism. On one such occassion he responded to Business Day editor Peter Bruce with an argument that not only warped what Bruce had actually said, but contradicted his previous position in doing so. In the article below I tried to set out why his argument was both flawed and devious.
FEATURE: The manic adulation heaped unthinkingly on all our Olympians seems to have died down somewhat. And the events at Lonmin Mine adjusted our reaction to the endlessly repeated refrain that the Olympics ‘united’ us as a nation. So, perhaps now is as good a time as any to ask: did we really do that well at the Olympics? Is six medals the epitome of excellence or have we settled for mediocrity? In the article below, I argue South Africans seriously needs to readjust their expectations if we want to succeed and stop celebrating the average.
FEATURE: Did you know Cape Town has hosted Bafana Bafana just four times in 19 years? That is a fairly remarkable fact. The city is hardly the sporting backwaters. In fact, almost every argument you can come up with against Cape Town hosting the national soccer team does not, on the evidence, appear to hold any weight. To see who has hosted the most games and why Cape Town deserves to see the national team more often, read on.
FEATURE: That headline got your attention, didn’t it? (Apologies to Tina Turner). Here follows a lighthearted story for a Friday. I have put together all the attendance figures for South Africa’s home matches in this year’s Super 15 rugby competition. From the title you will have already guessed which team boasts the support base that turns out in the largest numbers but, if you’d like all the facts and figures, the best and the worst, here they all are – read on; well, unless you’re a Sharks fan, in which case you should probably be at the stadium.
FEATURE: Yesterday the South African men’s hockey team joined their female counterparts in successfully qualifying for the London Olympics. Many will have no idea just what a remarkable achievement that is. For years South African hockey has been undermined by the ANC government, financially and politically, to the extent that their players have often had to fund their own training. They have overcome daunting odds. What follows is a tribute to their excellence and a description of the obstacles they have risen above as a result of it.
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