SA flag a symbol of support for Proteas from government

The Deputy Minister of Sport, Nocawe Mafu says it was important to remind the Spar Proteas of the country’s Department of Sport, Art and Culture support ahead of the Netball World Cup.

Ahead of the start of the first global netball competition in Africa, the national Department held a ceremonial handover of the South African Flag to the senior national team. Cape Town’s International Convention Centre is the host venue for the World Cup which will see 16 teams fight for the honours of the best team in the World from 28 July to 6 August The Proteas will be counting on home soil to better their performance from the last edition in Liverpool where the team finished fourth.

South Africa have only ended on the podium once, in the 1995 edition where the team took home a silver medal. Liverpool was the first time in 25 years that the Proteas achieved a top four finish.

Minister Zizi Kodwa handed the flag to captain, Bongiwe Msomi as a symbMafu stresses that the team needs to feel supported and be reminded that they are the ambassadors of the country as they represent every citizen.

“We decided that we hand over the flag to the team because ordinarily, if the World Cup was not being held in the country, we would have held an official send-off breakfast for them and handover the flag. It becomes important that because the World Cup is at home, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be showing the support the same way that we would have shown it if they were going away. That flag is saying to the team the ‘whole of 60 million South Africans are behind you, this is not just about you.’ It is about the country. That flag also says the government of South Africa is ‘100 per cent behind you. You are not there alone,’ that is the symbol of this event,” says Mafu.

“The team felt very happy and humble about the event because they didn’t expect it but it also says to them we take them seriously. They are now the ambassadors of the country, which is why that flag has to be given to them. They represent the country,” she adds.

The national government has been involved in this World Cup from the bidding process which was led by former Minister, Tokozile Xasa. Xasa was part of the delegation alongside Netball South Africa president, Cecilia Molokwane and CEO Blanche de la Guerre together with Cape Town member of mayoral committee JP Smith that travelled to Singapore where they submitted the bid for the City of Cape Town.

“When the bid had to be presented, the government had to be the one that leads the bid because a federation cannot win a bid to host without the government’s support. When guarantees were asked to pay for the bid, the government had to come in. We are funding this World Cup. The government made sure that it does not fail, we gave them (NSA) 110 (per cent) support,” she says.

Vice captain, Karla Pretorius says the team is raring to go. The goal defence, who was named the player of the tournament in the last edition of the competition will be one of the most players to watch out for. During the competition she will also likely mark her 100th appearance for the Proteas, having made her international debut for the Proteas in 2011 South Africa will face Wales in their Pool C opener before they face Sri Lanka on Saturday.

“We just want Friday to be here. We can’t wait. We have done a lot of hard work and we are really excited. I think it’s going to be a tough game coming up against them (Wales). We are not taking them lightly, we know what we want to achieve. We know what we want to work on. We are focusing on ourselves. There’s definitely a lot of pressure on us to get onto the podium, obviously, it being a home World Cup. We are fully aware of that but we choose to see that as a positive and take on this challenge with two hands.

Ultimately we can control what we can and that’s doing the hard work. We have done that and making sure in terms of preparing for each game we do the best we can, whatever the result will be the result. But we are going to give it our all, we don’t want to just go out and play but we want to compete,” says Pretorius.