It is not as though we do not spend big on sport in South Africa. Sponsorship from private companies on rugby, soccer and cricket alone, tops R3-billion a year. The state-owned Lotto budgets to spend almost R700-million on sport each year.
But a number of sports organisations do not meet the Lotto's criteria, such as the requirement that they supply financials for two years, so actual disbursements are lower, at about R500-million, according to evidence presented to parliamentarians.
The R500-million was split this year between 50 sporting codes, 20 of which are Olympic sports. These 20 codes shared R53-million, with Sascoc, the body which runs the Olympics in South Africa, getting R28-million, also from the Lotto.
The R53-million is more or less half the R113-million Australia says it costs to get an Olympic gold medal. With Australia's final tally sitting at 14 golds this amounts to more than R1,5-billion spent on Olympic achievement.
According to Sascoc the R28,9-million it gets goes to projects such as the Olympic Games, the Paralympic Games and the Commonwealth Youth Games. It also receives R9,1-million from sport and recreation and about R4-million from the Internaional Olympic Committee. It says that about 20% from all projects is recovered for admin costs.
According to UKSport, the British government's sports agency, the country spent £235-million on the summer Olympic sports in the run-up to Beijing.
This is about R3,4-billion on Olympiad sports alone. Their total medal count in effect cost the Brits about R63,8-million each. And this is not taking into account corporate sponsorships for the various teams and athletes.
full story from M&G here
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