Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie silent as basketball fiasco raises more questions than answers

28 Aug 2024

The minister promised to report back last Friday after the chaos of the U18 African Championship tournament came to light, but has thus far failed to do so.

GroundUp revealed last week that Basketball South Africa had failed to announce the venues, teams and coaches for the U18 AfroBasket with less than two weeks left until the tournament.

Gayton McKenzie, the minister of sports, arts and culture, tweeted a post linked to the story and stated: “This morning was the first time I heard about this, this is wrong & embarrassing for South Africa. We will never allow this circus to continue. We shall report back tomorrow (Friday, 23 August 2024) with our findings and action to be taken to remedy the situation.”

To date, no findings have been made public by the minister or his office. The minister agreed to a video call interview with GroundUp on Friday last week, but it was cancelled due to the presidential imbizo he attended running late. Since then, GroundUp has attempted to reschedule the interview several times with the minister’s office, but without success.

Dejected

On Tuesday morning, Basketball South Africa finally announced the teams that will compete in this year’s U18 Basketball African Championship. But players and their parents have been left feeling dejected as many of those chosen for the national team were not on the official training squad from which the team was meant to be picked.

Basketball South Africa sent a list with the names of the 12 players on each of the boys’ and girls’ teams, along with the coaches and managers. The announcement comes less than a week before the tournament, which is set to begin on 1 September.

According to the announcement, the preparation camp for the players begins on 28 August. This means players have been given a day’s notice to prepare.

Two of the chosen players on the girls’ team and six on the boys’ team were not on the original training squad. They also did not take part in the training camps earlier this year where further selection processes for the final team took place.

The original training squads of 25 girls and 25 boys were selected on 21 July 2023 from the U17 Interprovincial Tournament. Parents and players told GroundUp that Basketball South Africa made it clear the final national U18 teams would be selected from these training squads.

Dropped

A player who was selected for the training squad but not the national team told GroundUp that he was not upset that he wasn’t chosen, but rather that he and many of his teammates had been dropped for players who did not have to go through any of the trials that they went through.

The tournament, officially titled the Fiba U18 AfroBasket, is scheduled to take place in Pretoria. The venues for the competition have yet to be officially announced even though some of the international competing teams, such as Cameroon, have already arrived in South Africa.

Questions about the delays in venue announcement and selection of players were sent in an email to Basketball South Africa secretary-general Sibongile Fondini. We have yet to receive a reply. DM

First published by GroundUp.

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Dejected

Dropped