Politics.za

A day after Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile said that racial quotas would be scrapped for sports teams, President Mbeki has confirmed it, racial quotas for sport are no more.

Consider that not even 5 months ago SARU Deputy President Mike Stofile (Makhenkesi’s brother) was calling for quotas to ensure that at least 7 black players (excluding coloured players) were in every Springbok starting side.

This is quite a big turnaround, I guess having a team being able to focus on winning without constant (and often incompetent) administrators intervening to get the right ‘balance’ is a better incentive to get people to play the game. It’s also seems to be a reluctant confession that so far government’s transformation plans for sport have not produced the goods.

From The Weekender

THE treasury has questioned whether the R8,4bn it is investing in the construction and refurbishment of stadiums for the 2010 Soccer World Cup will ever generate a return, and not end up being a costly noose around the necks of ratepayers.

Malcolm Simpson, the treasury deputy director-general in charge of the 2010 World Cup preparations, conceded that with hindsight SA should have considered the future viability of the stadiums before bidding, but said “this is (now) history”.

As if people weren’t warning government from the very start about the fact that building new stadiums from scratch in a country where soccer teams struggle to fill half their homes stadiums (unless it’s a Kaizer Chiefs/Orlando Pirates derby) might be a bad idea.

Cape Town’s stadium is a particularly bad investment that is being built in Green Point solely it seems so there will be nice sweeping shots of the stadium, Table Mountain and the sea in one take. Whether it will actually be useful afterwards is another matter.

One of the ramifications of the current governments perpetuation of race based policies is that we inevitably arrive at a situation where someone, somewhere has to make decisions over who is black enough or who is too white. As has become apparent, there are those in government who no longer consider the coloured population of South Africa to be black enough. That seems to have spread outside of government as well into sport. According to South African Rugby Union Deputy President Mike Stofile coloured players should not be included in racial quotas:

Seven black players in the Springbok starting line-up for the 2011 World Cup are not enough, says South African Rugby Union (Saru) Deputy President Mike Stofile.

And the term “black” should not include coloured players, as that could limit the number of opportunities for players of colour.

Stofile was responding to a weekend newspaper report that quoted Saru President Oregan Hoskins as saying that there should be a target of selecting seven black players in the Bok starting team for the next World Cup in 2011.

That Mike Stofile is the the brother of Sports and Recreations Minister Makhenkesi Stofile might not be that big a surprise.

Update: And how’s this for more race based sports madness. At the SA Netball Interprovincial Championships teams must field a team with an exact black to white ratio of 5:2 and if they do not they get docked points. But this also applies if a team has too few whites, such as the team from Zululand which is composed entirely of black players. All their opponents get a 6 point head start. At least they’re applying the rules evenly but it’s still madness!

After some investigation the Cape Town city council has endorsed the plan to construct the planned World Cup stadium at Green Point. The price? Only somewhere between R3 billion and R4 billion. Which is a bit more than the initial R1.4 billion initially planned for. Added to this is the fact that the local government will only be able to supply about R400 million of that budget, relying national government and FIFA to supply the rest an arrangement that has yet to be decided on.

Now I’m all for the World Cup, I really am, but I can’t help but wonder if that money could be used elsewhere. For instance one of the reasons why a totally new stadium has to be built is because in order to host a semi-final FIFA requires a 68 000 seater stadium and the largest stadium currently in Cape Town, Newlands Rugby Stadium, only seats 55 000. The city council still Do hopes to convince FIFA to allow a semi-final to take place in a smaller stadium, and if accepted refurbishments to Newlands would only cost R1.8 billion. That, to me, is still the best option.

Also construction is supposed to start in January 2007. Are there even draft plans yet?

• Stadium plans for Cape Town are moving forward after provincial and local government assured Mayor Helen Zille that Cape Town would not be stuck with the entire bill for construction.

• Minister of Intelligence apoligises for the NIA illegally tapping politicians phones. Although if you ask me he should be apologising because they only managed to tap two of the thirteen intended targets. If you’re going to do something illegal at least do it well.

Mayor of Cape Town Helen Zille has decided to put a temporary freeze on the development of the new stadium for the 2010 World Cup in Cape Town for a number of reasons:

• The venue, replacing the Green Point Stadium, would pave over Metropolitan Golf Course, the only course close to the Cape Town CBD and one that is right next to tourist hot spot at the V&A Waterfront. Needless to say the tourism industryare not too pleased about it.

• The stadium is projected to cost at minimum R1,2 billion. This in a city with a backlog of 360 000 housing units.

• Wallace Mgoqi, in his infinite wisdom, signed a deal with FIFA giving them all the income from World Cup related activities in Cape Town leaving city to pick up the tab for funding that is not covered by national government.

And surprisingly provincial Sports MEC Mzonke Whitey Jacobs is agreeing with her although Premier Ebrahim Rasool is going to have a meeting with her to try and “convince” her of the current plans positive attributes. This does have the potential to be a major flashpoint between the DA and ANC.

Now I don’t think that Zille will prevent there being World Cup matches played in Cape Town, to do so would be political suicide, but I do think the council needs to carefully think things through about where the stadium should be (personally I think an upgraded Newlands is quite adequate, or even fully upgrading Athlone stadium would be nice upliftment for the community in the area) and how we’re going to pay for it all. Altough they do need to be quick about it.