South Africa's basketball community

Basketball turn around plan on track!!

By on September 14, 2010 in News

Basketball South Africa held a successful Annual General meeting on the 11th– 12thSeptember 2010 in Johannesburg. The meeting was an important platform for us to review the progress made by the federation since the new Board was elected in October 2008.The meeting expressed satisfaction with the progress made and appreciated plans put in place by the board to address gaps in the implementation of the turnaround strategy adopted in 2008 and the strategic plan adopted in January 2010. Amongst others the board will in the next two months appoint a full time Secretary General to drive the operations of the federation. In this regard the meeting expressed support to the Minister of Sports and the leadership of SACOC, especially President Gideon Sam, for their continued support in the mammoth task of restoring Basketball’s pride in the country.

A full two year domestic calendar was adopted at the meeting. By 2012 the federation should have a fully running National Amateur League which must serve as a strong feeder system to the Premier Basketball League. We will now solicit support of interested partners in the delivery of the league in so far as sponsorship is concerned.

Basketball remains the fastest growing sport which commands highest TV viewership in the world. The latest FIBA World Championships surpassed the FIFA World Cup in terms of TV viewership. 1 billion people from 200 countries watched the FIBA Championship on television while ratings in China show that 65 million people tuned in for the China – Greece game. In the 2008 Olympics Basketball was ranked the second most popular sport. It is this kind of global successes that we are looking forward on building on as a country.

We will in September host the National Under 13, the Under 16 and the Wheelchair Under 18 Tournaments in Port Elizabeth and the Seniors Championships in Cape Town in December. The meeting appreciated the support our provinces have continued to receive from various Provincial Departments of Sports during this period when we have no sponsors to run national championships. We will furthermore work with SASCOC, SRSA, Gauteng Provincial Government and the City of Johannesburg to ensure the successful hosting of the FIBA Africa Zone VI and All Africa Games classification games from 27 November – 5th December 2010 in Johannesburg. This is an important step towards hosting the FIBA Africa Championships.

The AGM reaffirmed the principle to continue working on strengthening Basketball structures, improving good governance from clubs, districts, provinces up to the national office. A successful sport federation is based on stoing competition and existence of strong community clubs.

The meeting received and welcomed the Angolan Coach Mr Carlos Antonio Dinis, who was presented to us by the Minister of Sport and Recreation. The coach is here as part of the bilateral agreement signed between Angola and South Africa by the respective President of the country. We will in due course release publicly the three months schedules of the coach who will be running development coaching clinics through the length and breadth of our country. Angola remains an important partner and dependable ally in our quest to build competitive National Teams at all levels.

The meeting agreed to convene a full day working session in October to address the perennial problem of schools basketball and receive a progress report toward the resuscitation of the PBL. We further agreed to collaborate with the NBA Africa team based in Johannesburg for the benefit of the game.

In the true FIBA spirit,”We are Basketball!!”

Press release by Malesela Maleka – BSA president on 13 September 2010

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There Are 3 Brilliant Comments

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  1. Dumzer says:

    Anything new here? When will we learn that words change nothing. Problems in the basketball community are still not addressed, like federation leadership. This sounds good, but it always does.

  2. CG says:

    Yawn !!!! Believe it when I see it…..Excuse my negativity but havent we heard it all before…..cant believe they are still talking about the PBL????

  3. Joseph Mangadi says:

    Amen bazalwane! More things change, the more they stay the same.

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