SPORT quotas have been exhausted and generally been counterproductive, Sport and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula says

Quotas were introduced to achieve the goal of integration but this had yet to be realised, he told a media briefing at Parliament on the ministry's "transformation perspective document".

It was necessary for the country to be strong in terms of sport development, and for this a national development plan was required.

"There is slowness (in transformation) because there is no agenda," he said.

"People complain. They moan about a whole lot of things, about transformation ... but everyone needs to be speaking about transformation knowing what is the plan."

He said there was an over-concentration on three major sporting codes - cricket, football and rugby.

What happened in netball, basketball, amateur boxing, or even boxing itself, among others, appeared to be "none of our business".

"You will be interested to see that in most of the sporting codes in our country, if you do an examination, we've achieved maximum transformation there, and through the quota system," he said.

"And I think transformation must not only be measured in terms of the top three commercial (sports). It must be measured across in terms of sport. So how are we going to achieve that? We are saying this transformation must be narrowed down to a score card ... (for) the different federations.

"Secondly, there must be a binding transformation charter," Mbalula said.

"Without a strong developmental approach, there would not be black players making the national team in the future.

"Because when we go to a World Cup, we're not going to select a person simply because of colour," Mbalula said.

"We want the best in the World Cup ... nobody wants to be a failure because of 'I'm here just to add up numbers of black people'. We are there because we want to compete.

"At the end of the day, I don't want to be a quota player. I want to be there on merit and I want my talent to be recognised." - Sapa