Big plans for sport on the West Rand

The West Rand Sports Confederation (WRSC) assembled at the Randfontein municipal offices recently to carve out a strategic plan for all sporting codes in the West Rand district’s Geopolitical Zoning for 2020 and into the future.

Kruben Pillay, newly elected chairperson, was very optimistic and committed to saying that, “This executive team will drive to ensure that all sporting codes or federations that play sport within the West Rand will be affiliated to the WRSC”.

Buyisa Xulu, MMC of Sports, Arts, Recreation and Culture at the West Rand District Municipality (WRDM) also provided insight into the previous structural issues that have plagued the organisation in the past. She was delighted that there was a new structure in place which is committed to revisiting the past challenges.

“WRSC hopes to unite, challenge and inspire the next generation of leaders to improve the lives of athletes and to act as custodians of the best practices within the sports community of the West Rand. Our intention is to educate current and future sports professionals, improve the physical and emotional lives of current and former athletes, and harness the power of sport to inspire positive social change within the West Rand,” he said.

Her expectation from the WRSC is to relook the government mandate for sport in South Africa and to align the West Rand to this mandate.

“Special consideration must be given to community-based projects with the WRSC acting as a facilitator, in partnership with the local government, to achieve the desired outcomes of local government,” she emphasised.

Vusi Ngubeni, secretary general of the WRSC mentioned that many federations are keen to know the benefits of being affiliated with the WRSC.

He said, “We intend to ensure more people will be trained and up-skilled in the administration of sport, to align the various organisations and federations with the new ways of operating. A pressing matter that will be addressed is to regain the affiliation of many athletes who play sport within the West Rand, but are affiliated outside their territorial boundaries.

“An initial audit has established that clubs located within the West Rand are affiliating to North West Province, Central Gauteng and Southern Gauteng. The executive noted one of the driving factors for West Rand clubs moving to federations located outside our local municipalities being the lack of administration, and it is therefore imperative that the new WRSC executive provides an effective and well-run administration service, to encourage West Rand clubs and federations to return.”

Kruben also said that the West Rand needs to hold their own ceremonies to recognise and applaud the achievements of the top athletes within the district. He made mention that he was often shocked to find out that certain top players actually live on the West Rand.

“There are other general challenges most sporting bodies and disciplines face, such as that sporting facilities, rural development in sport, and the participation of women in sport are neglected, and need to be addressed. The WRSC is specifically committed to addressing the issues of gender parity within sport in our district.”

Kruben concluded that he was positive that government and the WRSC would find common ground on which to build a strong partnership to face the challenges on the West Rand, so that we could strive to be the best sporting district within Gauteng.