Danone competition offers some light in soccer's darkness

In the days when my job forced me to listen to what people like him had to say, I recall hearing Dennis Mumble, the CEO of SAFA, tell audiences more than once that one of the problems with South African football was that the “white” schools play rugby and won’t let their boys play soccer.

By “white” he was referring to the former model C and private schools where, we all know, the majority of pupils are black, but that’s not the issue. The issue is that he was lying, and he knew he was.

I can say that because I saw him, on more than one occasion, at tournaments and matches involving those sorts of schools and where the white players on the fields were certainly in the minority. Where he was correct is that the rugby-playing schools don’t generally enter the SA Schools Football Association’s tournaments in the various age groups. Those competitions run throughout the year and will disrupt other sporting programmes. Why is that a problem necessarily? They will tell you that they want their boys to be involved with a range of activities, in summer and winter, and soccer season runs from August to October.

Only three months? True. But in that time the soccer teams at Joburg’s boys schools play roughly twice as many matches than their rugby teams do in their five-month season. And they are proper games, on good fields, in proper kit, well-refereed etc. In short, the soccer players benefit from the advantaged positions that those well-resourced schools hold.

It isn’t fair, but it’s not the reason why Bafana Bafana struggle the way they do. In fact, good leadership should surely be able to find a way to turn the quality that exists in that system to the advantage of soccer as a whole.

Instead, like Mr Mumble, they choose to pretend it doesn’t exist.

There is, however, a chink of light. It’s at primary school level where for the third year now schools from the Johannesburg Primary Schools Football Association -the body that runs the game at the former model C and private schools - are playing in the under-12 Danone Nations Cup competition.

The primary schools play soccer in the second term, of course, so timing’s not a problem. And importantly, the organisers have bent the existing model a bit to accommodate them. They have their own regional playoff system, which they have woven into their traditional-fixtures way of doing things and a slot has been created at the Gauteng provincial finals of the competition for the team that comes through.

Not all the Joburg schools enter – it takes a bit longer for all minds to shift – but the numbers are increasing and all the signs are positive.

No team from that side of the draw has made it through to the competition’s national finals yet. Perhaps they aren’t as good as they thought they were after all, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that a significant barrier has been breached and, for the kids involved, new things have been experienced and new acquaintances made. And it’s good for the game.

That’s what sport, and education, is supposed to be about, and those on both sides of this particular issue need to make more of it happen.