South Africa's basketball community

2017, different year but same issues for Basketball in SA

By on February 4, 2017 in News

3 years on since the last post on the website and nothing much has changed. Yes we have the Basketball National League (BNL) that has filled some of the void on the national “Gauteng” front but apart from that, the national federation (BSA) is still a mess with no real leadership and the game that we love is still in limbo.

The plight of the national federation has been covered at length in the past and to be honest it is still shocking that Basketball South Africa (BSA) won the federation of the year when we the people on the ground know that there has been a lack of development of the sport over the last few years.

The focus should be shifted away from the national federation to the government (Department of Sports and Recreation) and to South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) and questions around accountability should be asked. How do you continue to support a federation financially or otherwise if they are not accountable to you or their masses.

We haven’t competed on the international stage in a while and the piece meal approach to basketball in most provinces is a far cry of what we could achieve with proper direction from the federation.

The BNL is a smoke screen for the deficiencies of the sport in the country and a fully functional federation should bring it in line with a national objective. Every season is marred by controversy over various issues (Players payments, teams, coaches, foreign players etc..), the standard is poor and there is no real strategy. One wonders what will happen when Supersport reviews their sponsorship.

The NBA is operating without anyone asking the questions around how they are really benefiting the game in South Africa. Are we just the springboard they required to get a foothold into Africa?

Basketball academies  and agencies are springing up all over the country with false promises to our youth and their parents in a sport that has been mismanaged for so many years.

In 2017, we can continue to watch the same movie every year or we can do something about it.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Subscribe

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe now to receive more just like it.

There is 1 Brilliant Comment

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. martin hoffman says:

    It would be interesting to see the political will of the Minister,SASSCOC and all stake holders.
    The sad thing is that basketball is being treated like a sport that has always been directionless,without leadership,I the proverbal spade must be called just that,greed,self interest and short sightedness has distroyed probably what was one of the best supported best participarted sports across all colours,cultures and social standings this country has seen.
    It isn’t like we do not know what and who has cused the rot,we do,the question would be what will we do about what we know,will we bring to book those that have misused public resources,brought the name of the basketball into disrupt ?
    2017,What do we do about our beloved game?

Top