Our Opinion

Netball numbers

IF TRANSFORMATION in South African sport is supposed to start with a change of heart and mind, then Netball South Africa’s (NSA) latest ruling falls horribly short.

Their bizarre decision to reward or penalise teams at the Durban inter-provincial depending on whether they complied with the required black-white ratio has, naturally, been met with disbelief.

NSA’s ruling works like this: If a team has five whites, then it must also include two blacks while a team of five blacks must have two whites.

Teams that stick to these quotas will have six goals added to their score.

Now, if a team have at least a 6:1 ratio they will get three extra goals but if they slip to 7:0 they get no goals added to their tally.

Prior to this ruling the opposite applied whereby teams used to be docked goals if they wavered from the 5:2 ratio but when teams ended up with a minus score, the system was construed as too negative by the ruling body.

NSA obviously believe they are being as fair as possible but their ruling falls short when it comes to reality.

How are teams supposed to field white or black players if there aren’t any in their region?

And what if a player doesn’t feel the need to play at inter-provincial level?

If other sports had to apply this ruling then boy, would they be in serious trouble.

One example which comes to mind is the Border women’s rugby side which is entirely black. By comparison, the Blue Bulls women’s side is 99 percent white.

Logistically there are obvious reasons for this but if the netball ruling had to apply in this instance, both provinces would fall horribly short.

The same would probably apply to Border squash, tennis, surf, bowls and swim teams.

One wonders how amateur soccer and boxing bosses would feel about being forced to include whites – not on the basis of ability but on colour?

Netball officials are convinced their ruling is one of the best ways of taking the game forward.

What they fail to realise is that every player sidelined because of their colour is being denied their right to participate.

And if the national side is not chosen on merit, a long downhill slide is on the cards for the second-most popular sport in the country.

There was a time when South African netball was strong enough to be included in the top three. At present they are in danger of slipping out of the top 10 nations.

For as long as South African sports administrators keep their eye on race numbers rather than the ball, the slide will continue.