The Banyana Banyana squad’s victory of Wafcon is a demonstration of self-driven hard work against the many odds that women’s sports and their general development face. There is no sector of society that is innocent in this aspect.
Obviously, the government and Safa have failed. Not only is there no women’s soccer league in the country but there is no school league that exists in both public and private schools. The public school system has also failed to carry through the usual sports that women play such as netball. By extension this has also overlapped into the collapse of community sports club tournaments and leagues in our townships and villages.
What is now left are sports leagues played in Model C schools that are largely sustained by parental financial involvement and private funding. Still, these streams of financing are concerned about young men’s sports such as rugby, cricket and hockey, not women soccer.
In particular, it is generally the sports dominated by white administrators that continue to sustain the Model C schools leagues and the amateur leagues played in suburbs. Again, these mechanisms are covering the white-dominated sports – cricket, hockey, squash, rugby, water polo and golf.
Black-dominated sports in our country such as boxing and soccer do not get support from the government, donors and communities themselves. As a result the school leagues in our townships, including amateur leagues, have all collapsed.
The result of these disinvestments in black sport generally, especially women’s sports, stifles the transition of talent into the national leagues and national teams. In township schools children end up abusing drugs and alcohol, which all tamper with their authentic development into adulthood.
In essence, the collapse of black sport is an existential crisis for black communities and their economies.
But here’s the truth that black people need to hear.
First, there is no black sport that is going to develop and thrive without black communities themselves sacrificing their little resources to support its growth and breakthrough. The individual families where black children with talent come from need to put their hands in their pockets and pay for the development of their children in schools and in the amateur leagues.
This responsibility should not be outsourced to the government. Black families must come together and create platforms that will begin these investments. The government must be invited to join an initiative that is already moving and targeted by black parents themselves.
Big black institutions of sports such as Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates are all products of black investments and black commitment – even under apartheid conditions.
The victory of Banyana Banyana is but an exception of the individual hard work that those ladies have sacrificed and invested with their families in that project.
The truth of the matter is that the government and communities were not directly involved in initiating systems of women’s soccer development to sustain the value chain of Banyana Banyana for further victories ahead. This kind of a system does not exist.
The current debate by politicians on focusing on giving Banyana players money for winning Wafcon is not the kind of response that is required to address the crisis of women’s sports collapse. Yes, the matter of equal pay and adequate compensation is crucial. But the bigger elephant in the room is that the government and communities are clueless about what should be done to sustain women talent development in comprehensive terms.
A different debate needs to emerge if we are to truly end the systematic inequalities and the massive male nationalism that continues to hold our sports hostage.
Communities and families must begin to drive investments in infrastructure development, school sport and amateur township leagues to unlock black women talent growth. Their initiative must be followed up by pulling the government into this programme and force it to finance the sustainable development of these systems to achieve our country’s transformation targets.
The next step is to persuade soccer supporters and fans to follow women’s soccer and buy tickets to the women’s soccer league matches to generate revenue. The market sponsors will begin getting attracted to this brand of development and bring their massive budgets when they see value out of the support we as communities give women.
It is at this stage where we would be able to have a vibrant Banyana Banyana team that is globally competitive in World Cups and Wafcons on a consistent basis – and a thriving women’s sports that will also raise awareness about women’s other national codes such as netball, rugby, hockey, squash, boxing and tennis – to mobilise the whole country to love and support all sports equally to culminate in our common development agenda.
All this will start with you and me taking responsibility and putting money out of our own pockets to pay for the development of black women sport in our schools and in our communities.
- Dr Mzileni is a research associate in the faculty of humanities at Nelson Mandela University
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