BOOK EXTRACT | Marawa's 'dramatic' end at public broadcaster

Shortly after returning home from the World Cup, I was asked to anchor a game from the FNB Stadium.

It was a packed-out match and I was looking forward to it after the Germany experience. It was just what I needed to get my enthusiasm back.

I was on the scaffolding next to the field, hosting the broadcast. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. The comms didn’t work properly.

The leg of my chair kept getting stuck in the scaffolding because the mat was missing. There was so much noise in my earpiece. I could hear the guys in Auckland Park (Johannesburg) speaking through to the outside broadcast van and nothing was making sense.

It was probably the beginning of the wheels coming off at the SABC. I don’t even know or remember who was producing or directing that day. All I know is there was chaos.

Obviously, for the sake of the integrity of the broadcast, I had to try to keep everything in order, although at times it was difficult. I felt like the world was watching how bad things were. We were trying to do a crossing to Brian Mulder but he couldn’t hear me. Then he would try to speak but his microphone would be off.

It was a combination of so many different things. We wanted to improve, not regress. It was disappointing to see things falling apart. I thought to myself, what am I doing here?

In the back of my mind was the conversation that I had had with Imtiaz Patel shortly before the World Cup. I signed off that day with a very unconvincing ‘Gqimm Shelele’ at the end of the show.

I went straight home from the stadium that Saturday, sat down at my desk and began to write my resignation letter from the SABC. I didn’t end up sending that letter for a few weeks. But I knew my glorious stay at the SABC had probably come to an end. I was prepared to go and sell hot dogs in Braamfontein (Johannesburg) if necessary.

I needed a new sense of motivation, a new challenge, a new platform, a new arena. I’d seen what SuperSport were doing with AmaTuesdays and their productions were good. There was something they were cooking.

They had one or two magazine shows they were trying to get going. I would have been happy to cover pigeon racing or bowls, to be honest. I was just keen to get out of an environment that was slowly but surely starting to suck the excitement out of what I thought was a really great platform.

It was very difficult for me to leave the SABC. I had always had a love and respect for it. It was my first platform and one that I had desired as a kid.

But things were starting to unravel. I was not experiencing the standards I had become accustomed to. Half the time I was rescuing a broadcast as opposed to being part of a broadcast that I enjoyed and put everything into.

I was dreading going into a production knowing something would go wrong. Someone would not pull their weight and I would be left exposed. I was having to save broadcasts and give them the integrity they deserved.

This was not what I had signed up for. It had nothing to do with anything or anyone else. I needed to test myself. Maybe I had also become complacent. It was many things, but it was a jump that was necessary at the time.

Before I had the opportunity to announce that I was resigning, other forces intervened. This was the beginning of a wave of similar experiences that involved me being fired or not having my contract renewed at various jobs over the next few years.

I submitted my resignation on a Friday to Mvuzo Mbebe, who was then the head of sport at the SABC, and that weekend, the Sunday World newspaper broke the news that I was leaving the SABC for SuperSport.

It was a front-page headline. Like so many things that happened within the SABC, it was probably a leak from within the broadcaster to the newspaper.

Sunday World was always the default tabloid that knew things I had privately spoken to the SABC about. There was obviously a line of people who had got wind of what was going on after I resigned.

Once I saw the headline, I knew there was no denying it. I could also tell that an internal person from my employer had leaked the story. SuperSport wasn’t commenting on the story; I wasn’t commenting on the story.

Sunday World was confident enough to run it on their front page because they knew it to be true and could live and die by the headline.

That Monday I went and did my radio show on Metro FM as per normal. At that stage I had two separate contracts for radio and television. It was something I always insisted on.

I had resigned from television but not from radio. Once the radio show was done for the day, I headed off to do SoccerZone on television.

Before that could happen, I received a message from Mvuzo’s PA telling me not to bother doing my show on television that Monday.

Clearly, they didn’t want me to be on a live broadcast.

* This extract is from the book Gqimm Shelele: The Robert Marawa Story written by journalist Mandy Wiener