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Ken Borland


Sam makes trumpet call against bloated sports department 0

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Ken

 

Sascoc president Gideon Sam has made a trumpet call for Minister of Sport Fikile Mbalula to forge a more efficient administration in the fight for sporting transformation.

Sam, speaking at the Highveld Lions awards dinner this week, said Mbalula was presiding over a bloated administration that was deflecting money away from the effort to clear “historical backlogs” in sport.

“The minister of sport has a very small budget, hardly a billion rand, and that’s for his administration too. Each minister of sport inherits a huge staff and, because of the power of the unions, he dare not touch that staff. I compare it to Sascoc and I wonder why there are so many people in the department of sport and recreation? It has to be asked. It’s very hard for the minister to work people out and usually he brings in more of his own people as well.

“Politicians want to use sport for ‘social cohesion’, but that phrase is not in my dictionary. How can sport, which is so impoverished, do that? The truth is, if you really go into it, South African sport is not structured correctly. We’re not giving impoverished sportspeople, black and white, a fair chance,” Sam said.

Sam suggested the debate over World Cup selection was “deliberate, to try and throw stones at the administration and it takes us nowhere”, but he did acknowledge that there was growing frustration at much of the bureaucracy that surrounds transformation and funding.

“The federations apply, they fill in all those forms and they don’t even get an acknowledgement so they get fed up with the battle. Why should they concern themselves with transformation policy when they have to foot the bill themselves?”

The Sascoc president said the club player who could “afford a plane ticket and the price of accommodation in a hotel” was always going to make a team ahead of competitors who could not afford to travel to tournaments.

 

Tags:
Category Sascoc, Sport

IAAF won’t dictate where Oscar runs – Team SA 0

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Ken

Team South Africa will not be seeking any ruling from the International Amateur Athletics Federation over which legs of the 4x400m relay double-amputee Oscar Pistorius may run at the London Olympics, South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) president Gideon Sam said on Wednesday.
Pistorius, who wears carbon fibre blades and was cleared to compete against able-bodied athletes by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2008, was named in South Africa’s 4x400m relay team last week. There were subsequent reports that the IAAF would not allow Pistorius to run in anything but the first leg of the relay due to concerns over the safety of the other athletes because of his prosthetics.
Sam told Reuters on Wednesday that it would be up to the relay team and coaching staff to decide where Pistorius runs.
“We won’t give in to any outside interference over where Oscar is allowed to run, that would amout to discrimination. The debate over whether he gets an advantage from his blades is over and, like any relay team, be it athletics or swimming, it is now up to the team to decide where he runs,” Sam said.
Pistorius, who failed to meet Sascoc’s stringent qualification criteria for the individual 400m, was named in the 4x400m relay team because he was a member of the team that won silver in the 2011 World Championships and is South Africa’s fastest runner over that distance this year.
“The team ran the qualifying time twice when they won silver in Daegu and Oscar was a part of that team. They are ranked second in the world at the moment, so we are very confident that Oscar must be there at the Olympics.
“Oscar ran a qualifying time in South Africa and has worked very hard in running all over the world, so there’s no reason not to include him,” Sam said.
Sascoc’s qualifying criteria stated that an athlete must run a qualifying time both locally and abroad this year, but Pistorius only reached the 45.30 second threshold once on South African soil. But because he is going to the Olympics anyway as a member of the relay team, he will be allowed to participate in the individual 400m as well.
While Sam denied there had been any pressure from the International Olympic Committee for Pistorius’s historic inclusion in the South African team, the deputy minister of sport, Gert Oosthuizen, confirmed that government had backed the 25-year-old’s selection.
“As part of our drive to normalise society, we want to mainstream disabled people, that is the declared policy of government. We always want them to be able to showcase what they can do and to destigmatise them,” Oosthuizen told Reuters on Wednesday.
Sam also announced on Wednesday that Sascoc would pay incentives to all South African medal-winners at the Olympics.
Gold medals will bring a reward of R400 000 [40 000 euro], silver R200 000 [20 000 euro] and bronze R80 000 [8000 euro].

Tags:
Category Athletics, Sport

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    John 15:4 – “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”

    For those who believe in Christ, their greatest desire should be to grow into the likeness of His image.

    But once the emotional fervour has cooled, what about your daily life? Do you reveal his indwelling Spirit through the sincerity of your motives, your honesty, unselfishness and love? You may speak of Christ living in you, but is that reflected in your actions and do you allow Him to find expression through your life?

    We need to draw from the strength Christ puts at our disposal – the indwelling Spirit that overcomes our human weaknesses and inadequacy.

    And remember we bear fruit, we cannot produce it.



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