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ALTHOUGH part of the objectives of the National Youth Games is to facilitate selection and development of sporting talent from the grassroots level there is, however, a certain seriousness lacking in the way they are organised. The contempt for what is meant to be a crucial national sport development initiative was shown this week in Mutare when a large contingent of the Matabeleland South team as well as Harare province’s football and volleyball teams were sent home for failing to pay affiliation fees for the 13th edition of the games.
Provinces are required to pay $80 for each competing athlete, but Matabeleland South took a large delegation of 144 athletes and officials to Manicaland despite raising a paltry $800 for affiliation fees, enough only to register 10 competitors.
About 120 other athletes were sent home three days into the tournament, and the saddest part was that some of them had started competing and were doing well.
The mass ejection left Matabeleland South with just 10 athletes competing in individual events and in the process eliminating themselves from the medals race.
Although Harare has a representation of 239, the province had taken extra unregistered boys’ and girls’ football and girls’ volleyball teams with the aim of winning most of the medals.
The football teams returned home after the province failed to pay, while the girls’ volleyball team was also sent packing after reaching the final.
One is left wondering how these games are run. Are the rules so opaque that a team can be allowed to compete and reach the final only to be thrown out?
If the rules are as clear as spelled out by the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Andrew Langa, then why were so many innocent young boys and girls subjected to such untold deliberate national humiliation?
Just what was going through the minds of these provinces’ organising structures transporting young athletes with the full knowledge that they were not registered?
Although Minister Langa is technically not to blame for this fiasco, his Ministry ought to have taken keen interest in the entire preparations of the National Youth Games, including the selection process through the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) representatives in all 10 provinces.
The Ministry is correct to say it’s responsible for the games at a national level, but to be completely absolved, they have to ensure that the SRC drives the process since it’s their mandate to create an enabling environment for sport development in the country.
Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs can be patrons of their respective games’ teams, but I still insist that sport falls under the Ministry of Sport.
Provincial administrators, provincial education directors, town clerks, town secretaries or chief executive officers of local municipalities, who form the supervisory committees of each province’s respective preparations, are not sport experts.
The secretariat of these supervisory committees comprising the SRC and the provincial local organising committees should have driven the preparations to ensure things went well.
The question is what were the roles of the SRC and provincial local organising committees in all this confusion?
As the experts, they must have been responsible for advising the supervisory committee about the funding shortfalls instead of burdening their games’ management teams with travelling to the games with a host of ineligible athletes. Maybe the Ministry needs to change tact and play a supervisory role in all provinces since the present system is not working.
The National Youth Games must be about providing a platform for athletes to showcase their talent.
They must provide a priceless chance to catch young people at the crucial moment and set them on the path to sport.
We need to face up to the fact that links between schools and sports clubs are virtually non-existent and that we are faced with an alarming drop-out in sports participation among school leavers.
Athletes’ development is, by its very nature, at the heart of what sport is about. It is not only about performance but also about developing social and ethical skills and preparing people for healthy and productive lives.
Sport plays a vital role in young people accepting responsibility, developing self-esteem and learning team concepts, which are all vital tools in later life.
Due to the mass bungling, a lot of athletes were denied the opportunity to showcase their talent. Maybe among those thrown out are potential athletics and boxing champions, who could now be totally lost to sport as youths are known not to take embarrassment and humiliation lightly.
To make matters worse, most of those athletes are also in the Confederation of Schools’ Sports Associations of Southern Africa (Cossasa) teams whose ball games tournament runs from August 26-30 in Bulawayo.
It would not be surprising if most of them pulled out of the Cossasa Games’ squad as a reaction to the pain and shame they suffered by being kicked out of the National Youth Games.
Teenage years can be challenging as most young people experience a number of competing pressures and go through many personal and lifestyle changes.
With so many interests and limited time, sport has a lot to compete with.
The young athletes may just take this time to evaluate their interests and sport may have to take a back seat in their lives if they are to take into account this week’s unfortunate events in Mutare.
Online Reporter