Sick and Tired of - being Sick and Tired
Regular SARugby.com commentor and contributor - Modjo - contacted me with a well written and thought provoking piece on the Beast Mtawarira saga. Have a look and have your say…
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Yet another government official criticizing South African rugby, YAWN! Its all getting a bit old now isn’t it?
Khompela wants to puke on the jersey and Stofle does not want to insult other players by giving Beast his residence. Why government continues to try and push their agenda on our rugby team remains a mystery. So I had to ask myself the question: “Why is soccer free of criticism from our politicians?” Bafana Bafana have basic immunity compared to the Springbok team. There have been no controversial statements, there have been no threats of confiscation of passports, NOTHING! So should this lead us to believe that all is well with SAFA and all is unwell at SARU. Nothing could be further from the truth. Lets examine the facts!
The Springbok rugby team is currently ranked Number 1 in the world. The team has won 2 World Cups and three Tri-Nations trophies. In the four world cups they have played in, they have
won two, been semi-finalists (winning the 3rd place playoff) and quarter finalists.
Bafana Bafana are currently ranked number 85 in the world (below teams such as Mozambique, Oman, Panama and Benin). The team has won only one major trophy which was the 1996 African Cup of Nations.
In their last 5 matches they have managed only one win, a 1 – 0 victory over Madagascar a team ranked 154th in the World.
Since re-admission there have been 4 World Cups. Bafana Bafana have only qualified for two of these, and in the two World Cups they did qualify they did not progress through to the second round.
Their results in the African Cup of Nations since readmission shows the steady decline:
1996 - Winners
1998 - Runners Up
2000 - Third Place
2002 - Quarter Finalists
From 2004 - 2008 the team never progressed to the second round of the tournament and in 2010 they never even qualified. Their coach, Carlos Alberto Perreria is not South African but Brazilian.
Since re-admission the Springboks have had 10 coaches, all of them being South African. Bafana have had 16 coaches, with 6 of them being foreign.
The Bafana Bafana squad for the upcoming game against Japan contains a squad of 24 players. Only two of these players are white players. This makes the racial composition of the squad 92% to 8%. Both the white players are goalkeepers, so only one could start. This would mean one white player out of a team of 11. But are South Africans up in arms about the racial composition of the Bafana squad? Do you hear the D.A. accusing SAFA of being racist? No, because if this is the team the coach feels is the best then we must accept it as the best.
Lets take a look at the Springbok touring squad to Europe. 37 players were selected. 22 of these players were white. This makes the racial composition of the squad 59% to 41%. Now imagine the two statistics were reversed as in 92% white players, there sure would be hell to pay, and Khompela and Stofile would have a field day. In fact this team is still getting government agendas pushed onto it because one of the black players is not a South African citizen. And yet they chose to remain silent about the fact that the national coach of our soccer team is not even an African!
Take a look at individual players as well. Springbok players have won the IRB player of the year twice since its inception in 2001. No Bafana player has ever won the World Player of the year or African footballer of the year award.
So what would Stofile and co make of these facts? They would put it all down to poverty caused by apartheid and racism. So lets dispel those myths as well.
SAFA was readmitted into international football 17 years ago. This has been plenty of time to sort problems out and get a generation of great players coming to the fore.
If anything the results have declined quite significantly over time. So in other words the further away from apartheid we go the worse the results have become.
The PSL is one of the richest, if not the richest league in Africa. That pretty much takes poverty out of the equation. If they still want to plead poverty how come African countries have produced players such as the Toure brothers, Didier Drogba, Michael Essien, Samuel Eto, Emmanuel Adebayor and Sulley Muntari? These players come from far poorer countries than South Africa. And what does South Africa have to show for itself? We do not have one player at a major European club, the best we have is Pienaar at Everton, Benni at Blackburn who is hardly playing and Aaron Moekena at Portsmouth.
The problem must lie with the administrators. If the department of sports and recreation is claiming that the problem does not lie with our administrators then they are saying there is simply no talent in South Africa. So what is it boys? No talent, or bad administrators? If you claim its no talent then surely that is more insulting to South Africans than granting The Beast a work permit based on his skills? If you are saying its about bad administrators then why are you not going after them? Why are there no political interferences and probes into SAFA? Why are you always knocking at the door of SARU? I know why, because you sirs are in fact racist.
If something is not broken why try and fix it? By pushing your political agendas on sports and making them about race you make whites resent soccer and blacks resent rugby, and that sirs is a real crime. Politics and sports has never been a happy marriage, keep colour out of sport so we may one day support our teams, not as blacks and whites, but as South Africans!
Written by MODJO
