Ramatsiyi Moholoa

Ramatsiyi Moholoa

African ministers responsible for sports have pledged to do their best to ensure a resounding success for the 2010 World Cup.

The politicians are attending the 40th ordinary session of the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa (SCSA) at Sun City. It was scheduled to end late yesterday.

Members also used the opportunity to thank South Africa, especially President Thabo Mbeki, for seeing the need to have the tournament as an African World Cup.

The member states also made it clear that there was no room for racism and violence in sport on the continent.

The SCSA also pledged to work towards facilitating mobility of women into management positions of sport organisations.

The session acknowledged that sport is still an afterthought in most countries as governments focus more on reconstruction and development.

Lerato Mogorosi, media officer of minister of sport Makhenkesi Stofile, said lack of financial support by the corporate world for sport was cause for concern.

"Aligned to this is the issue of poor sponsorship from business, with South African companies being seen to be better supportive of sport development than those in most countries.

"The session urged member countries to respond to the gene- rosity of sponsors by being transparent in the management of funds they receive."

Stofile also used the opportunity to give a feed-back on his inspection tour of Zambia, who which host the 2011 All Africa Games.

"The session acknowledged that while there were some challenges in Algeria last year, there was general improvement in how the games were organised and on the quality of competition.

"The commitment is to give Zambia as much support as they require so as to deliver the best tournament possible."

The SCSA said they were concerned that the majority of Africans were not supporting the games. Part of their plans to improve the status of the games include using them as qualifiers for the Olympics.