Open Letter to Minister of Sport and Recreation, Mr Fikile Mbalula;

Firstly, I would like to make clear from the onset that I acknowledge the improvements and diversity in sports in terms of national support and participation that has happened ever since our icon, Nelson Mandela, left the stadium of supporters and players mesmerised at Rugby World Cup in 1995.

However, I strongly believe that not enough emphasis has been placed on sport development, particularly amongst poor communities and schools. This will partly explain why to date we still have not produced a large enough pool of black athletes in swimming, diving, cycling, tennis, rugby and cricket, to name but a few.

Yes, we have introduced sports quotas but despite this we are not making much progress. Minister Mbalula, in my understanding the idea of a “quota system” in sports is peculiar as sports team are built out of a pool of hard working, dedicated players and talent. No team in its right mind will deny opportunities to players of high calibre, black or white.

There is a saying from our neighbours in Nigeria that you can’t stop a shooting star; if a star is going to shoot it will shoot. The focus of your department should be to bring sports closer to black and “coloured” communities so that not only kids from middle and upper class families in our communities (who can afford to attend schools such as St Stithians College and St John’s) end up being the only pool that will produce quality sports players of colour.

Let’s bring these opportunities to our communities. Let sport development happen in our backyards where we can see it. So that tomorrow when we accuse clubs of not representative teams we know that there is a large pool of players of colour in our backyards for them to choose from. Sport development should happen within schools and communities as this type of development has to be part of our young peoples’ daily lives, not just a once-off side thing.

Another point that we need to acknowledge is that sport is a serious business globally; sports men and women of relevant age at provincial or national are part of the organisational back bone. Consider what basketball has done for the African American community in America. It has taken many young people out of projects (housing provided by the state) and given them international recognition.

I firmly believe with enough investment into sport development in black/coloured communities we can turn around the clock in such a way that even sports “quotas” will be a thing of the past, as we will produce an outstanding pool of sports men and women. However, for us to get here in my humble opinion a detailed community and winter/summer sports plan needs to be put into place by your Ministry.

Perhaps we can learn from the Chinese Elite Sport& Olympics strategy, an ambitious system of selecting and training elite athletes. China is one of few countries in the world that uses “spare-time” sports schools extensively to train and prepare future elite athletes. A spare-time school is a boarding school that specializes in sports and, in this instance, was established mainly to train Olympic hopefuls. Students are selected on the basis of their athletic talent.

There is currently an estimated 360,000 students and about 3,000 sports schools at all levels across the country. Entry age for these schools is around 4 and 5 years of age. This system provides China with an advantageous position for winning medals in Olympics, games and other sports competitions around the world, leading to tremendous national pride among citizens.

We have yet again won the right to host an international sports event, Commonwealth Games 2022. Many of my fellow South African citizens and I would be deeply disappointed to see a situation where we are, yet again, simply a host country. Our game plan needs to match our events hosting stature; it must be of high calibre. I will reiterate my point again: if enough energy is placed on sport development we will be a winning nation in all aspects of sports participation.

Let us all play our part in shaping the type of sporting nation we want our country to become.

Thato Moloi is a member of Democratic Alliance and writes in her personal capacity.