How many times have we been down this road?
South African athletes, having dedicated years of their lives shedding blood, sweat and tears in a quest to reach peak performance are hamstrung by financial woes on the last leg of an arduous journey to the Olympic Games.
South Africa's soundtrack to Olympic glory — or even a shot at participating — is starting to sound like a broken (vinyl) record. Lack of funding. Click. Lack of funding. Click. Click. Click.
The country's hockey teams are among those having to clamber over financial hurdles on the final stretch to Paris 2024 in July.
The women’s team, which qualified this year for their sixth appearance at the Olympic Games, is crowdfunding to cover their preparatory expenses. The men's team is in the same predicament.
SA Hockey interim CEO Shaune Baaitjies told TimesLIVE Premium, “Like many other sports in South Africa, our programmes are primarily self-funded unless external sponsorship is secured. It’s crucial to acknowledge that this isn’t exclusive to hockey. Numerous sporting codes in the country face similar financial realities.”
The situation mirrored 2020 ahead of the Tokyo Olympics when the men’s and women’s teams had little financial assistance besides a contribution by South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc).
Funding gaps
Sascoc is paying for the hockey teams' flights to Paris this year, but there are significant funding gaps related to local travel, camps, pre-event accommodation, meals and visas. All of which could torpedo the team's chances.
The women's team are fundraising in partnership with ProTouch Africa and on their radar is securing R485,000 to cover accommodation at a high-performance camp in Stellenbosch in May. Another R800,000 is required for acclimatisation-related costs in Europe in June, playing games in France and training in Belgium.
It's a scenario faced year in and year out, whether the competitors be swimmers, speed climbers or canoeists. Click. Click. Click.
It is true that the government is grappling with mounting debt and a cash crunch. Potential sponsors have tightened purse strings because of the sorry state of our economy. But the problem has been around for years.
On top of that we have an entire ministry devoted to looking after sports, arts and culture in South Africa with a R6.3bn budget (about 23% of that for sport) allocated for 2023/24.
Sport — especially winning on an international stage — has proven time and again its power to unite the nation and build social cohesion. The perfect, albeit often short-lived, antidote to the politics of division tune that so often divides us.
Have our politicians been doing enough, albeit with dwindling resources, to nurture and support our future stars on the track and field? Is the money being spent properly?
Instead of budgeting R3.7bn, for example, on VIP protection last year for ministers and politicians (who are not poorly paid), should we not have invested some of that on nation-building through sport?
While funding is not guaranteed, one thing is for athletes who qualify and manage to raise enough cash to set foot in Paris. Win a medal and our politicians will be the first to arrive and brag about “South Africa's victory”.
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