The captain of a Johannesburg-based basketball team has slammed the basketball administration in the country for its “lack of progress”.
Johannesburg Giants’ Pieter Prinsloo said there was ample talent within the country, but there was a lack of support, leadership, and infrastructure to cultivate that talent to take the sport forward.
The seasoned player was speaking during a press conference in Pretoria on Wednesday ahead of a Basketball Africa League Kalahari Conference game on Friday, where the Giants go up against Tanzanian team Dar City.
Addressing issues on how the sport could grow in the country, Prinsloo spoke frankly on the challenges currently holding the sport back. “The talent pool we have is immense, and I think that if there’s a way for us to fix this.
“The current administration is absolutely destroying the sport in this country, because they don’t care about the sport. They just care about themselves,” he said.
He added the last time they were part of a decent tournament was in 2024 in Mozambique. “They [coach and team] pretty much put everything together by themselves and scraped it all together to make sure that we could go to the tournament. It’s completely disappointing to consider that we should be one of the powerhouses in Africa.
“We have the talent and the players to be competing at Afrobasket every year, to go to World Cup qualifiers and potentially, you know, make it further than that,” Prinsloo said.
He said there needed to be some sort of change as basketball was the fifth most-played sport in the country, yet there were no proper support structures.
“And until we get people in positions who are actually there to push basketball and ensure that the infrastructure is fixed, it’s going to be tough. We need to build from the grassroots level, where everything is organised, up to high school, universities, and then a proper local professional league, like Angola, Egypt, or even Rwanda. They have fixed their leagues in the last couple of years.
According to Prinsloo, all the countries that perform well at Afrobasket and compete at a higher level are the ones where local infrastructure has been improved. He said they have professional leagues that run for five to six months.
“South Africa, unfortunately, does not have that. I wouldn’t call the (Basketball National League) BNL a professional league, because, in my view, it’s not,” he said.
Head coach Florsheim Ngwenya said where there’s no direction, a lot can go wrong. “In the sense that where there’s no direction, there’s a lot of misinformation, number one, but also a lack of interest, more often than not, from different spheres, whether it’s business or athletes. A lot can go wrong.
Meanwhile, BAL tips off tomorrow with Puma having announced a multiyear collaboration as the official outfitter.
The sports apparel maker will supply all official BAL team, fan and referee apparel, including game uniforms, warm-up gear, practice wear, accessories, and branded tops for participants in the league’s social impact and player programming.
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