Loading ...South Africa and the Springboks, despite the interference and politicking of Mike Stofile and his cabal, took a trip to France and emerged as the world champions.
Who can ever forget those wonderful scenes as our president was hoisted shoulder-high by the second rugby team to unite a nation? A shining light (sans power failure) amid the gloom of a very difficult year for South Africa.
They were a great bunch of guys driven by a shrewd coach and his support staff — the stuff that fairytales are made of, and an incredible foundation on which to build the future of South African rugby.
Unfortunately South African rugby is infested with racism, which is threatening to tear down the walls and usher in our equivalent of 40 years in the wilderness. The racism this time, however, is not white on black but in fact quite the reverse. Hardly a day goes by without Stofile and his cohorts slamming a lack of transformation and promising to fill each team with a majority of black players.
Let us backtrack a step or two:
South African rugby was the pride of the white nation during apartheid — no question. The pace of transformation has not been acceptable to many, including players, coaches and pundits — undoubtedly.
In this regard I refer to the fact that the game is not getting to the grassroots anywhere near as much as we would like, and with the money in rugby today, it is unforgiveable that the game does not attract millions more young black players.
Of course the same can be said about other sports. Soccer, where telephone numbers are being invested into the game, has now had to admit that the money (or proper use of it) is not finding its way into the youth structures.
The fact is that there is nothing that prevents all South Africans — irrespective of race — from climbing to the top of their chosen sport. The fact is that black South Africans have enormous power and influence over what happens in both rugby and soccer at present.
Yet in both sports, the grassroots are not receiving anywhere near the level of development that they should. Yet in both rugby and soccer, television deals have been concluded with SuperSport rather than the SABC — that is, the place where the vast majority of our people watch their sport. Did I say vast? I meant overwhelmingly, huge, vast majority watch their sport.
So not only are the youth at grassroots level not being reached on the ground, but their university — television — also doesn’t feature the very sports to which we are trying to attract them if South Africa is to attain (soccer) or remain at (rugby) the levels we desire. Don’t let me catch anyone blaming SuperSport on this - it is doing it’s job and brilliantly. The fault lies with the SABC, the sports administrators and the government who have failed to ensure that it is the public broadcaster that obtains the rights.
This comes 14 years after the fall of apartheid and the power in both sports shifting into the hands of black administrators.
So where you see Mr Stofile banging the drum of transformation, please don’t get excited — I wouldn’t hold out any hope that he means getting down to the rural areas or the underprivilleged. He means getting down to the team sheets, getting out the photographs and selecting teams where the faces and the skin colour match his idea of transformation.
That’s called (can you Adam and Eve it?) a “whitewash” whereby the country will be told that having a mostly black Springbok(?) team is transformation. That is to transformation what price freezing was to reducing inflation in Zimbabwe. It comes back and bites you in the tochas within months.
Fourteen years on, while transformation may be far from where we want it to be, rugby is also exactly where we want it to be — world champions, in a country where racial discrimination is illegal. How the powers that be implement transformation should be guided accordingly: keep the formula but get it to the youth.
Back to the future: we are now facing a showdown between Oregan Hoskins and Mike Sofile for the Saru presidency.
Transformation in the eyes of Stofile — and I invite him to correct me if I’m wrong — entails fielding a certain number of black players in the Springbok and other major South African sides, irrespective of their ability. In other words, whites cannot be chosen, based upon the colour of their skin, and blacks based upon the same have to be included.
Please feel free to correct me, Mike — if I sound annoyed, it’s just that I can’t stand racists (please feel free to look up the definition in the dictionary). Yes, I am aware that some of your best followers are white and we all know what we feel about them. For instance, try making a certain Stormer our captain and watch our response.
While affirmative action and BEE are vital in transforming our country, with my full support, racism in sport — the great unifier of all our people — will never get my backing. It creates unnecessary hatred and has no place in a country where all sportsmen and -women can compete at any level.
But it’s not Stofile’s blatant racism that annoys me as much as the way he has repeatedly undermined his seniors in the Springbok camp and, in particular, Hoskins. I have never met Hoskins in person, nor am I his spokesman, but I do know that we are world champions on his watch.
I’m not thrilled that Hoskins concluded another major sport television deal without the SABC, but that is something that can be investigated in the ordinary course.
What annoys me about Stofile is watching him circumventing Hoskins on Heyneke Meyer to score points, seeing the way Hoskins was somehow left out of the function in Paarl and how Stofile’s brother, who just happens to be sports minister, is now receiving letters about the deal with SuperSport — nothing to do with Stofile, of course.
Right throughout Jake White’s reign I watched Stofile and his pals with their ongoing sniping at the Springbok camp because their choices or decisions weren’t being carried out. It’s the never-ending back-biting that I can’t stomach.
If they can act like this now, I am scared to think what will be left of our game when they are finished with it.
In my mind, the choice for Saru president is between the man who was at the helm during our triumph in France and a politician posing as a rugby person who wants to be president. Why not change the title to Zanu-PF if Stofile gets in? That’s zero answers, no understanding — performances fuc … but I digress. He’ll make Mugabe’s rule in Zimbabwe seem benign.
Let me think about it — I choose you, Oregan Hoskins.
Don’t forget to tell your brother on me, Mike.
He does tend to remind me of a hyena who’s always yapping about whats NOT being done and i’ve never heard him come with some concrete solutions.
I fully agree on the part that transformation starts at grass-roots level. i know so many kids who were excellent sportsmen in high-school, come tertiary there’s no development, no push to source the talent which was displayed at secondary-education level. and you wonder where we are gonna get these springboks from.
for the unofficial record,i’m a young xhosa man…so the racists comments can stop right there. had enough of that topic yesterday. i’m just sick of quick solutions which have no impact in the long run. start training them young and we’ll have a future of real Rainbow sportsters.
*phew*
*takes a deep gulp at his pint of bitter, and wipes the foam from his non-existant beard*
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