South African sports minister not to impose 60-40 quotas favouring black players

Johannesburg: The South African sports minister has said that the 60-40 quota favouring black players would not be imposed, following a meeting with three minority groups.

The meeting, with lobby group AfriForum, trade union Solidarity and the Freedom Front Plus, followed an announcement that quotas would be imposed before the May 7 national elections.

According to Sport24, Fikile Mbalula said that he is not imposing the 60-40 quotas onto anyone, adding that as a minister, he is not going to ignore South Africans that have concerns about the positions they have taken.

Stating that he had an obligation to everyone, Mbalula also said that he now knows 'what to do next', and although he steered clear of using the term quotas, he however, insisted that it is important to set targets for transformation in sports as there cannot be any redress without targets due to an open-ended process.

The respective organisations welcomed the meeting with the minister and said more talks would be held to find a solution to the glaring differences in opinion on the quota system.

On April 5, the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee and Mbalula announced far-reaching measures to address the lack of transformation and development, as indicated by a pilot study on the status of transformation in sport.

The report indicated that at national representative level both cricket and rugby under-performed in that on average for all teams only 35 percent and 34 percent of the set targets for black African representation were accomplished, the report added.