Covid-19 impact felt in sports

The world has been tough place lately. The Covid-19 pandemic has halted plenty of things around the world with the economies suffering due to lockdowns in many countries.

Sports fans have felt the pain as most events have been postponed.

With no live sport on television I have found myself chatting to this nice lady I recently found out I live with.

Turns out I have been married to her for six years (do not let my missus see this).

Seriously the implications of the pandemic will be felt for a long time.

While our favourite stars around the world may miss the competition of being involved in professional sport, the most hard hit as far sports goes will be the people who we do not think too much about.

I recently read that many of the non-playing staff at top sports clubs overseas will have to accept pay-cuts as their employers struggle to balance the books.

Locally sport clubs will be worried about their players.

With the country currently in a 21-day lockdown many of Brakpan’s sports stars will not be doing too much training from inside their houses.

The thing is so many of the local sports personalities do not compete professionally and the sporting codes that they love do not provide an income for them.

This means that they are unlikely prioritise their sport when the lockdown ends.

They will more than likely focus more on getting up to date with their jobs and studies, for those who are students.

What will also be worrying to many in the sporting world will be the loss of sponsorship.

With many businesses expected to take major losses during the lockdown period, it may be difficult for the enterprises to fund sporting teams and athletes in the future.

While all this sounds like the sporting world will be in serious trouble, I do believe that there will be recoveries, especially in Brakpan.

The local town boasts better facilities than most neighbouring towns which means it will always be more attractive to invest in rugby, swimming and martial arts in Brakpan than most places.

A year or two from today we will look at this time in history and remember all the lessons we learned from 2020.

We will definitely be more aware of hygiene when we go out to support our favourite sports teams at stadiums.

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Contact the newsroom by emailing: Thelma Koorts  (editor) brakpanherald@caxton.co.za

or Stacy Slatter (news editor) stacys@caxton.co.za

 or Miné Fourie (journalist) minev@caxton.co.za

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