no more quotas - mbeki
8 November 2007

Transformation in sport has to happen in the shortest period of time, but not at the expense of any South African athletes, as government we fully support the notion of a winning culture in sport and I will rally 100 percent behind our national teams when competing in the international sporting arena," President Thabo Mbeki said in reply to questions in the National Assembly.

"However, to have a real and lasting impact on our nation we cannot compete with the exclusion of certain parts of our population. "If we win, it must be a victory for the whole country as was demonstrated now by the Springboks, with true transformation, as a country, South Africa could become an even greater force in world sport." Mbeki said.

Through proper development programmes by the national federations and good supporting systems, the wealth of sporting talent could be exploited with representative teams a natural outcome. Once the programmes were adequate, by the law of averages, the representivity of teams would normalise naturally.

The need to build a non-racial South Africa should never be under-estimated. "It's critically important for the success of this country. It has to happen," he said.  The easiest route would be to select the Springbok players on the basis of merit without racial quotas.

It sounded right, but that meant that until the physical and other conditions which gave birth to players of excellence, such as John Smit, had been created, the team could stay as it was.  "Merit is not inborn, merit arises from the social conditions in which you were born and grew up."

"We want all our children to start from the same line. Who finishes first must not be pre-determined by the disparities of where they individually start."

"Yes indeed no quotas, but we must answer this other question; how then do we accelerate this process of change? And the development, the building of stadia and training of coaches and so on, is necessary but not enough. So let's answer this question together," Mbeki said.

"Sport must belong to the nation; it is an integral part of our way of life, of our South African culture over which government, with its elected representatives, has also a serious responsibility."

All sporting federations were autonomous, with the federations responsible for their day to day activities, including the selection of national teams.

"Although we adhere to this practice, it does not distract government from pursuing our responsibility to accelerate transformation in sport, making sport accessible to all South Africans, making more funds available to school sport and to put academy systems and sporting facilities in place that will assist talented athletes to reach their full potential," Mbeki said.

Sapa,  www.sport.iafrica.com