Netball South Africa, the South African Football Association and South Africa Sports Association for the Physically Disabled are in the running for the Federation of the Year crown at the 2022 Momentum gsport Awards.
The category celebrates a sports federation that has made the greatest strides to grow women’s sport commercially and include women in leadership positions.
For the first time in South African Netball history, this year Netball SA took the sport to the next level by awarding 24 players professional contracts in a ground-breaking move ahead of the 2023 World Cup, which will be hosted in Cape Town.
This is above and beyond the development that federation focuses on in grooming future talent and administrators with tournaments like the Telkom Netball League as well as the Telkom Netball Championships.
Netball SA President Cecilia Molokwane shares how the federation plans to leave a lasting legacy in the sport that many generations to come can benefit from.
“Being a finalist for the 2022 Momentum gsport Awards is a great honour for us as a federation and to everyone who is part of the netball community. This is testament to the work that we do every day. We do not do what we do for awards but rather for the betterment of netball and largely women sports in general. Ours is to ensure that we leave the sport better than we found it, we want to make sure that by the time we are done, the entire netball fraternity has also evolved, and changes have taken place. As a federation we are truly humbled by the recognition, this demonstrates that we are definitely on the right path and doing something right.”
After making strides to establish a Women’s League in the country, which includes the Hollywoodbets Super League, among other investments, SAFA saw these strides pay off when Banyana Banyana won their first ever 2022 TotalEnergies Women’s Africa Cup of Nations title in Morocco, which also saw them qualify for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
“This recognition means a lot, especially to the many people who wake up every morning and give their service to football. They give their very best to this sport and to the Association, and this acknowledgement of their toil is greatly appreciated and cherished,” revealed SAFA’s Media & Comms Mninawa Ntloko.
A federation that soldiers on in spite seemingly insurmountable challenges, the South Africa Sports Association for the Physically Disabled hosted a whopping 541 athletes at the 2022 National Championships where 97 SA records and 11 African records were broken.
The federation houses eight sporting codes which include athletics, boccia – for severe cerebral palsy, cycling, CP football – also for your cerebral palsy group, go ball – for the blind or visually impaired, powerlifting and swimming.
One of the highlights that SASAPD President Moekie Grobbelaar is proud of is the fact that South Africa’s Paralympians always manage to bring back medals and the President believes that this is thanks to the developing structure within the federation.
Grobbelaar could not think of a better way to celebrate the Federation’s 60th Anniversary than on the Momentum gsport Awards stage.
“First of all, I just want to say that we are feeling very honoured to be one of the finalists. I think for a small Federation like ours, this a huge honour. SASAPD has been in existence for 60 years. We are also grateful for the time we could be there because we have made a difference in a lot of the athletes’ lives that are living with a disability, like myself. I have also been an athlete for many years and today I am now the President.
“I am grateful to our stakeholders and the great relationship that we have with each of them and we are able to be there to support our athletes with disabilities to make a difference in their lives. One of our biggest challenges is classifications. None of our athletes can participate on any level without a classification. Classification is there to make the play on field equal. To win this Award, it will have a huge impact on the Federation in the sense of funding.”
In 2021, Gymnastics South Africa were crowned winners of the Federation of the Year category.
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