You love your sport. But look, you’ve got a lot going on right now, and you can’t be expected to keep up with all the latest news about lockdowns and second waves and all that, and who’s beating who at what, and what it all means.
No worries – we’ve got you covered. Every week, we take a look around and round up some of the most interesting sports writings out there – just for you (and you, and you, and you, of course).
Here’s what we found out in the last seven days …
Football Funk: International Incidents
English Football Association chairman Greg Clarke – and vice-president of world football governing body FIFA, called black footballers “coloured”, described being gay as a “life choice” and, for the trifecta, suggested the lack of professional footballers in England from South Asia are a result of “different career interests”. Classy. He had to apologise, naturally.
Meanwhile, South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe has announced his intention to stand for the presidency of the Confederation of African Football – an immensely important position. Here’s what you need to know about everyone involved. Oh, and Orlando Pirates boss Irvin Khoza will continue as Premier Soccer League Chairperson for the next four years. And Cape Town City FC chairman, John Commitis, was elected in his eight-member PSL executive. At least you don’t need to know anything about his competition for the post: he was nominated unopposed. Now let’s end off with something positive – and awesome:
Banyana Banyana have secured a fourth successive COSAFA Women’s Championship title after beating Botswana 2-1 in a nail-biting final yesterday. Cape Town’s own super star Sibulele Msawawa Holweni, who opened the scoring to take her goal tally to eight, earned the Cosafa Golden Boot Award. See what’s possible when what’s happening on the field is more exciting than what’s happening in the boardroom, guys?
Cricket: Back In Action & (Almost) Coming Clean
Okay, so we were hoping we wouldn’t have to mention Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) big issues ever again…because after months of corporate governance failures that stemmed from shortcomings of the previous CSA leadership, Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa named a new Cricket South Africa board, and they laid out a framework to tackle cricket’s myriad problems. And then the first round of the domestic four-day competition provided some serious high-quality action, CSA named a Proteas squad for the inbound England tour, the Central Gauteng Lions senior women’s team became the first local provincial women’s side to hand its female athletes professional contracts,
and AB de Villiers released a new song (yes, really). So far so good, right? Well, then the CSA Member’s Council decided not to appoint the interim board, a decision met with ‘disbelief’ from the South African Cricketers’ Association, and the England tour was in danger of being cancelled – though it seems it’s going to go ahead anyway, but CSA is still on thin ice with the International Cricket Council. Fun stuff…
Golf: Gary’s Good Times &Tiger’s Troubles
The Gary Player Country Club at Sun City will host the South African Open for the first time in its history in December. And the honours don’t stop: for SA’s greatest ever golfer: Gary Player and fellow golfing great Jack Nicklaus kicked off the Masters with the opening tee shots.
The tournament is going good for track SA, but US world number one Dustin Johnson is demolishing the competition – and young Americans in general are dominating the game and the rankings at the moment….but it’s not a great tournament for Tiger Woods, alas. And it’s all happening in silence, as the whole pandemic thing has meant spectators must be kept away. It’s not just golf, though – in American football, the New England Patriots have announced no fans will be allowed for the rest of the season. And after a gymnastics event in Tokyo where spectators wore masks and were asked to confine themselves to polite applause and murmurs, officials have said that fans may be asked not to cheer during the Tokyo Olympics. That’s going to be – well, safer for COVID-19 reasons, ruse – but a little different, too.
Netflix, No Chill: ICASA Opens Up Sports Broadcasting
But even if sports fans aren’t allowed in the stadiums, and those that are let in have to keep quiet, at least you can still watch at home and make all the noise you want, right? I mean, what’s better than settling in for a good weekend of televised sport, with a nice beverage and some mates and…oh, what’s that you say? You don’t have DStv or Supersport or whatever else? No worries – SA government is aiming to bring sports to a wider television audience with the newly-filed Draft Sports Broadcasting Services Amendment Regulations. The idea is to make sports free to watch for the legions of sports fans in this country who don’t have expensive viewing packages, and the regulations are open for public comment, and there’s no shortage of that – and DStv isn’t exactly thrilled with it (nor is SA Rugby, for that matter). Oh, and at the same time…did you know that government wants to tax Netflix and Multichoice to collect TV licence fees for the SABC? And Telkom SA and SABC have partnered to launch their own streaming service? Weird times…
And that’s the week in sport.
Did we miss anything? Any interesting developments we should be talking about? Why not let us know at info@capeat6sport.co.za? And if you want to know more about what’s been happening in sport, just check out the latest issue of the Cape At 6 magazine. It’s dedicated to highlighting amazing women in sport, from top achievers to activists to academics – and we’re also tackling virtual reality, township tennis and more. Enjoy!
