African Union Sports Council (AUSC) Region 5 secretary-general Mvuso Mbebe says African sports leaders must work hard to improve the state of sport on the continent.
BY GRACE CHIRANGANDE
Mbebe was speaking at a forum held at a hotel in Bulawayo yesterday.
“Africa does not gain more than a percentage in sport on the economy, but they contribute raw materials at a rate of 27%, hence these resources should be used to improve Africa. Sport today should use yesterday to predict the future and I think it should use African sports leaders who should start thinking globally,” he said.
Mbebe pointed out that African sport leaders should not just sit at the high tables with organisations like world football governing body Fifa and settle for nothing.
“Fifa made about $4 billion from the World Cup that was hosted in South Africa and from that money, Africa got only about $7 million,” he said.
“We should ask ourselves what we were doing as sports leaders when the money was being divided. We must be there at the table and challenge the status quo.
“We also need to grasp the importance of women in sport, because mothers are leaders. We should also have a paradigm shift when it comes to leaders in sport and I think that will improve the AUSC in a good way,” Mbebe added.
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Head of sport at African Union (AU) Commission, Machacha Shepande, said governments should provide an environment for people to take part in sport.
“The government has a critical role to ensure that they create an environment that is good for people to take part in sport. We have an agenda that is to re-emphasise on the Olympic principles of placing sport at the service of human kind. We aim at spreading Olympic values and promoting sustainability,” Machacha said.
“The mobility of sport leaders in Africa affects sport in the region. As far as I know, no African leader has spent over five years on the job. They are constantly on the move. We also have to look at the capacity of sports leaders and administrators because that has been a major block for us at Olympic levels,” he said.
The discussions were part of the forum that is being used to evaluate effectiveness of confederations’ programmes and activities and subsequently draw and align the regional confederations programmes to the AUSC Region 5 strategic plan.
