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MADZE, LET’S HAVE A TEA MEETING!

09/02/2021 00:15:00 BY Lwazi's Pandora's Box

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My dearest Minister of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs... Writing open letters is one of my sentimental dislikes, but it gives me great singular pleasure to pen this love letter to you this Tuesday morning.

I have a morbid desire to address you in these most traumatic times when our sports have been hit for six months by the greatest tragedy to humankind in the turn of the 21st Century.

This love letter, predictably, is from one Buccaneer to another. I know how you feel about that glorious, indestructible institution formed in Orlando East in 1937 at the moment, especially after the MTN 8 Cup triumph. I know how you smiled yourself to sleep on Sunday after that other team from Soweto were baptised by GladAfrica Championship side Richard’s Bay who booted them out of the Nedbank Cup ensuring a sixth trophyless season is imminent in Naturena.

But that is the least of my worries Mr. Minister. Foreign football is sending us into an aerobics of excitenebt yet our teams are twiddling thumbs at home following another suspension of sports in the country.

Repugnance

That’s my source of repugnance.

You see Mr. Minister, sports is an industry. Football in particular is a multi-billion industry. In this country it is up there with many industries as it provides a livelihood for thousands of people though it is continuously treated as a ‘hobby’ by your own government. Therein lies the rub.

We cannot have an industry where the captains in the form of sponsors pour in millions of Emalangeni every year treated as a ‘by-the-way’. We cannot have an industry which is an escape route for many under the yoke of economic, social and political depression treated as just ‘another gathering’ of people. Football, in particular, has thousands of people under its employ. These employees (players and officials) have contracts which the employer (teams) has to fulfil.

The football leadership presented a fool-proof plan which was accepted by both your ministry and not the least, Lizzie Nkosi’s Ministry of Health hence on December 12, 2020, football returned under the new normal. Due diligence was done to ensure football returned under a safe environment.

Suspension

The latest suspension merely based on the rising number of COVID-19 cases and deaths needs to be reviewed immediately. Football, Mr. Minister, cannot be treated as ‘just another gathering of 50 people’ because as it is, there are still no fans allowed into the stadia, which is understandable.

The football authorities went further to ensure the emotional owners of the game got to watch the games live from the comfort of their home through the live-streaming platform. How many more industries with even more people which are open at this juncture have taken such huge steps to ensure safety?

My gripe, Mr. Minister, is that you are not seen to be defending this industry enough or fighting for its just cause. The industry is opened and shut at whim yet to be honest we have not had ONE COVID-19 death from the football industry of a player as a result of football returning to action.

Risk

Mr Minister you should be seen to be leading the crusade to save the industry which is now at risk of losing the few sponsors who still find it worth the while to support.

Will the National Sports Policy, for instance, be reality in your term of office? Besides the ongoing refurbishment of Somhlolo National Stadium, what else has your Ministry done for sports, in particular?

Mr Minister, many political commentators often decry the fact that as a country we just have too many ministries and count the ministry of Sports as one of those whose presence is as good as its absence.

In other countries, the ministry of Sports, is a crucial ministry involved in the economic upliftment of those countries. A perfect example is Botswana and South Africa.

This column, the State-of-the-Nation-Sports-Address (SONSA), threw you a challenge after your much-heralded appointment as minister to first find out ‘WHY’ we play sports in this country.

We know in SA the ‘WHY’ of their sports is primarily social-cohesion after the most evil system devised by mankind – apartheid – divided the nation.

What is our ‘WHY’ as a nation in relation to sports? Is it a hobby that will never migrate to a business hence we will remain on amateur status until the cows come home? If not, what efforts are being made to ensure we turn the tide?

Those are the many questions that your ministry can take us through and provide the answers. But if we struggle to get just a football season going like other countries are doing in the COVID-19 pandemic era, the future looks bleak.

Reputation

My green flies on the Cabinet wall tell me nobody is standing up for sporting issues and the latest suspension of football, in particular, makes me believe this.

This falls on your lap Mr Minister and it doesn’t do your reputation any good. What legacy are you going to leave for sports in two years time?

While you ponder on this, I am extending an invitation for a cup of tea in any restaurant of your choice. My treat of course.

If things were normal, I would have invited you to a watering hole, you would have your poison of choice – the Sky Vodka and I would have the finest Scottish nectar, but then the early evening curfews and intermittent prohibitions on the sale and purchase of the umber-coloured beverages by government makes it impossible.

So, yes, let’s have a tea meeting, ‘Madze’, it will be ‘nice, sweet and hot’...

Yours in Sports

Lwazi Manqoba Knowledge Dlamini