SABC can't expect us to pay for its soccer rights mess

It just gets worse for the SABC. As it tries to clear the hurdle of having a chief operations officer widely believed to be a cheat and an incompetent, it must now also deal with the prospect of losing the rights to broadcast Bafana Bafana games.

The new kid on the television field, Siyaya TV, has paid the SA Football Association about R1-billion for the Bafana Bafana TV rights and for the rights to televise other games outside the Premier Soccer League.

What is troubling about this turn of events is that the SABC has reacted as if Siyaya TV and Safa have committed a crime.

The move will affect thousands of people who rely on the public broadcaster to watch Bafana play.

Serious questions must be asked of those who run the SABC, such as where were the SABC managers when the allocation of broadcasting rights was being considered by Safa?

It does not help for SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng to shout: "All sports of national interest must belong to the SABC.

"We must regulate it and all sports of national interest must be on the SABC."

Gone are the days when the nation had to accept deals that added no value to sports.

For years the SABC had exclusive rights to the fixtures of all sporting codes in the country - and what did it do to improve them?

It made no major investments in sport for years and has repeatedly fed us what it calls "delayed live games".

Siyaya TV has not yet given all the details of its operations and it is worrying that Safa has signed a deal with an outfit that does not even have a studio.

We have a duty to ask Safa whether it is expecting the SABC to buy the Bafana rights from Siyaya TV at a premium.

If that is the game plan, the public will not only be bailing out the SABC but will have to foot the bill for it to buy back what it had in the first place.

The people running the affairs of SABC need to shape up and stop sleeping on the job.

If you value something, not only do you fight to keep it, you invest in it.