Netball South Africa (NSA) have become the latest sports federation to throw its weight behind the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement after president Cecilia Molokwane urged players and officials who have experienced discrimination to speak out.
Molokwane said in a statement on Thursday that the BLM movement is an important social injustice conversation to have but it must not become another talk shop or an act of lip service. She insisted that the current netball national team is in no way divided.
“None of the players that are there can ever say that they were or are discriminated (against) based on their colour of their skin. They embrace each other as a family and as sisters‚" she said.
"This is the culture that we are inculcating as part of our DNA and blueprint moving forward.
“Netball South Africa urges all players‚ coaches‚ umpires‚ technical teams‚ and administrators who may have experienced any form of racial discrimination to come forth to us as the federation so that these matters can be dealt with as soon as possible.
"Eradicating racism in our federation can never be the task of the executive and council alone‚ we need every single netball stakeholder to get involved and help us deal with this issue‚” she said.
Molokwane also revealed that she experienced discrimination during her days as a player.
“As a former player I have had to deal with a lot of discrimination. It is for this reason that when I got into office‚ I made sure that we deal with these issues that have plagued us for so long and no current player should go through what I went through.
"This is not an overnight job‚ this is a mammoth task and we are consistently working towards making sure that we deal with this monster and eradicate it completely from our sport.
“Racism has no place in society and in any kind of sport‚ the onus is on us to make sure that we uproot it. As the current president of Netball South Africa‚ I always preach that we need to be the change that we want to see. This starts with looking at the person you see in the mirror.”
