O n the day we publish this edition of ANC TODAY, 9 June, the 2006 FIFA Soccer World Cup will kick off in Germany. For the next four weeks, billions across the globe will keenly follow what will undoubtedly be an exciting sports tournament.
We take this opportunity once more to extend our best wishes to the competing teams, the host nation Germany and its Chancellor, Angela Merkel, as well as FIFA, and its President, Sepp Blatter. We convey a special message of support to the teams representing the African continent and wish them success.
The whole of our nation was very disappointed when our national team, Bafana Bafana, failed to qualify for this year's Soccer World Cup. This is however no reason that we should not enjoy the spectacle that will be provided by the best national soccer teams in the world.
However, our absence from the tournament and the way we fared at the African Cup of Nations have sounded alarm bells about the state of soccer in our country and sports in general. The excitement generated by the 2006 World Cup and the fact that we will host the next one, should inspire the entirety of our nation to engage the issue of what we should do to improve our performance in the field of sport.
Fortunately, all of us agree about the critical importance of this area of human activity. We agree that participation in sport by all our people, both the young and the elderly, would make an important contribution to the health of the nation.
Health for all remains one of the central goals of our reconstruction and development process. Clearly, we must therefore do everything possible so that sport plays its part towards the realisation of this goal.
We are also agreed that sport plays an important role in the development of our youth. It also provides a most appropriate outlet for the energies of our young people, helping to keep them away from unhealthy and anti-social activities, such as gangsterism, alcohol and drug abuse.
We are further agreed that sport plays yet another important role in terms of uniting our people, helping us to accelerate the process of building a non-racial society and improving the social cohesion that our country needs. All of us have seen how much the victories of our national teams inspire pride and joy among all of us, teaching all of us that we are one nation. I believe that it is also true that our successes in international competitions help to strengthen the level of confidence in ourselves as a nation, inspiring all of us to work even harder to achieve the goal of creating a better life for all our people.
For all these reasons it is necessary that we all make a critical assessment of the development of sport in our country with a view to evolving some consensus about what needs to be done. This would also help to raise the level of awareness among all our people of the importance of participating in sport.
What has happened to soccer and cricket over the last few years indicates the urgency with which we must engage this process. This is reflected in an article on the website of the Department of Sport and Recreation, which draws on work done by Professor Tim Noakes (MD, DSc) Sports Institute of South Africa, and Ross Tucker (BSc Hons), student at the University of Cape Town.
On the issue of soccer, the article says:
"In 1994, South African was ranked about 100th in world soccer. Thereafter followed a period of rapid improvement so that by 1997, the team was ranked 16th in the world. Since then, with the exception of a period between 2000 and 2002 when the team stabilised at a position around 20th in the world, the trend has been downward. By the beginning of 2006, South Africa was ranked 49th in the world, the lowest ranking since December 1995.
"During this same period, the performance of Bafana Bafana in the African Cup of Nations has deteriorated progressively from victory in 1996, to beaten finalists in 1998, to third place in 1998, to beaten quarterfinalists in 2000, to first round eliminations in 2002 and 2004. Unchecked, this trend predicts that within two years South Africa will be ranked outside the top 16 African nations and will fail to qualify for the 2006 African Cup of Nations. Currently South Africa is ranked 8th in Africa, also the lowest standing since December 1995."
With regard to cricket the article says:
"In Five-Day cricket, South Africa held second position from 2001 to 2004 before falling from 2nd to 6th position in 2004 with a partial recovery to 4th in 2005 before falling back to 6th position at the start of 2006 and to 7th after the recent series whitewash at the hands of the Australians. But a review of South African cricketing performances since 1994 shows a progressive decline in competitiveness over the past decade when compared specifically to Australia.
"Thus the team coached by Bob Woolmer and captained by the late Hansie Cronje reached its peak as a One-Day team in 1996 with a win:loss record of 5:1 winning 25 of 30 matches. In contrast Australia's One-Day win:loss ratio in 1996 was only 1:1. Between 1995 and 1999, South Africa won 75% of their matches compared to 57% by Australia. In contrast since then the fortunes of the two countries have exactly reversed with Australia winning 75% of their games and South Africa only 59%."
These statistics relating to soccer and cricket communicate the very clear message that there is something radically wrong with our sports. Undoubtedly the dismal story relating to the international performance of our national teams also reflects what is happening domestically in amateur and school sport.
What is to be done! When he addressed the National Assembly a few days ago on 31 May, the Deputy Minister of Sport and Recreation, Gert Oosthuizen, said:
"Sport is still being trivialised in our country. It is regarded as frivolous and unimportant even though it is a multi-billion Rand industry, said to contribute more than 2% to South Africa's GDP. In fact, sport daily occupies the time of the majority of our people and it forms part of the psyche of the majority of our country's people. How much time do we not spend watching or reading about sport every day? Many of us start reading the newspaper from the back page. For some, it is the only page that gets read.
"While Government is committed to sport and recreation, we are certainly not on par with the developed world with whom we compete. The developed world, with whom we compete have identified and committed to exploiting the potential of sport and recreation for achieving significant socio-economic and other outcomes... "To realise the benefits that can possibly accrue from our sector, we need three things; resources, resources and more resources.
"What we need is: * infrastructure organisation, programmes, facilities, equipment and kit; * human resources sufficient thereof, of good quality and with an appropriate disposition; and, * finance that underpins both infrastructure and human resources...
"As a Department we have the smallest budget of all national government departments. We are committing some R10 per person per year to the participation of our people in sport and recreation activities presently. R10 can never make a substantial contribution to participation rates in sport and recreation..."
Perhaps the most important lesson we should draw from the fact that Bafana Bafana will not step into any of the magnificent German stadia during the 2006 FIFA Soccer World Cup tournament is that we should, at last, stop trivialising sport, very wrongly treating it as frivolous and unimportant. Lilliputian efforts cannot produce Olympians!
