Vernon Philander and Kyle Abbott have become the latest symbols of South Africa's murky, clumsy transformation "strategy" (I use the word very loosely) in a saga that is more likely to peter out in a haze of apathy than be resolved or provide direction for the future. Cricket SA's internal investigation - conducted by its own board - took one day, didn't name the investigators and didn't disclose specific findings, other than to reassure a sceptical public that everything was OK. No really.There might have been some influence, but who it was, or how it happened, that was all OK. Trust us.And so we move beyond this case, and presumably onto the next.Transformation is a subject that will not go gently in the night when it comes to South African sport. And while I appreciate the frustration of our sport-loving public, the target of their wrath should not be the concept of transformation, but rather its execution.In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that before the transformation puzzle can be effectively solved, the collective mindset of many needs to change and accept the importance of transformation, both for political and performance reasons.We must first discard the notion that politics has no place in sport, and that any form of political interference should be avoided.It is naïve, and fails to acknowledge that the racial biases that the current quota-mindset aims to correct (poorly, I know) were produced by political forces. So, though two wrongs do not make a right, the reality is that correcting those biases must involve some form of political action.The alternative is to hope for a reversal of the previous situation without any action, to allow talent to emerge unassisted and hope that it does so in a way representative of South Africa's demographic tapestry. But that will never work in sport because sporting success offers a perfect example of what has been called "The Matthew Effect", in which those who have, get richer, while those who do not, become ever poorer.Since sporting success among groups is so heavily influenced by culture and social history (see Kenyan marathon running, Jamaican sprinting and New Zealand rugby), a passive approach will never change the "haves" and "have nots" created by South Africa's political past. If anything, the divide will grow larger and only active steps will disrupt the inevitable outcomes.The second failing of the "leave sport alone" argument is that sport is always offered and used as a vehicle for social change, a unifying force that transcends social and political boundaries.We've been fortunate to witness this many times in South Africa. The result is that sport is "in play", a viable target, and we can't insist on the sport-society relationship being one-directional only.Therefore, we need to accept that sport is and will continue to be a target of political role players.A second mindset that has to change. We, too, readily make transformation and performance mutually exclusive.Transformation in sport is actually crucial to high performance goals, because it's one way to expand the pool of viable athletes who can represent South Africa.I looked at the most recent census data for South Africa, and there are approximately 20million South Africans in the elite athlete age range.Of those, I'd be surprised if even 2million can be considered "viable" elite athletes because of the past quota systems in the opposite direction.Increasing that to even 4million makes performance sense - why pick your best XV rugby players from 2million when you could pick from 4million?That, and enhancing sport's social influence, are the purposes of transformation. Unfortunately, both are lost because of a lack of strong leadership and clarity of explanation.Add to this that the political intervention is done not for the above two reasons, but for ego and personal gain, and the result is Philander and Abbott. And many others, with no end in sight. Next week, I'll discuss some of the failings of execution in transformation...