City Press
Tim Spirit: Africa must end the shameful age cheating in soccer
I am very concerned. My frustration stems from the deafening silence that followed the inaugural Under-16 African Schools Champions Cup in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which was held last week.
No one, I mean not one official, has come forward to condemn the daylight robbery that happened in Kinshasa when the hosts’ Under-16 team won the title.
Guest Columnist: Sports events in question as Russia attacks Ukraine
It was the legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly who famously once said: “Football is not just a matter of life and death: it’s much more important than that.”
This quote is often misquoted and misrepresented, but somewhat found itself in the media reports that detailed Russian invasion of Ukraine this week. In truth, this was nothing new.
Hanging Judge: Recruitment and retention of match officials is getting more difficult
The old cliché “no ref, no game” is as relevant today as it was all those years ago when it was first coined.
With the ever-increasing shortage of referees, it’s difficult to know where we will be in the coming seasons.
Side Entry: Powell can solve an age-old Sharks ‘problem’
In among all the red card-fuelled drama of the storming of Fortress Loftus Versfeld by the Sharks a fortnight ago was the cameo that earned fly half Curwin Bosch his United Rugby Championship start against Benetton yesterday.
Having been out of the franchise competition for a while due to a combination of indifferent form, a hip injury and – one could even argue – a crisis of faith during which a move to Bath in the UK was talked up, Bosch came off the bench at about the time scrum half Grant Williams was sent off for a dangerous tackle on the Bulls’ Chris Smith. But a serendipitous sequence of events means Bosch is, maybe for the first time, in with a realistic chance of fixing a problem that has dogged his rugby career like a bad smell.
STORIES
“For me, especially coming in my role, you have to balance long-term, medium-term and short-term objectives … Short term is to win and we didn’t win,” Kaizer Chiefs sporting director Kaizer Motaung Jr in his review of Amakhosi’s recent performance.
Are Pirates and Chiefs in the league just for the Soweto derby ?
For nearly seven seasons, Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs have been living in the shadow of their Tshwane rivals, Mamelodi Sundowns.
If league success were a barometer, Sundowns’ 11 premiership titles would make what the two Soweto giants picked up over the past two and a half decades pale into insignificance.
The jinx of boys from Mams at Sundowns
The curse of the home-town players at Mamelodi Sundowns continues. Players born in the Pretoria township have struggled to make a name for themselves at the club. The most recent to fail is defender Sifiso Ngobeni, who joined the club from Bloemfontein Celtic this season.
The evolution of Wanderers Stadium
The Imperial Wanderers Stadium, nicknamed the Bullring, is known the world over as one of the globe’s leading international cricket grounds.
Apart from hosting the 2003 Cricket World Cup final, the Wanderers also housed the unmitigated mayhem that was the 438 run game in 2006. It also provided the blank canvas for the artistic carnage disguised as an ODI innings when AB de Villiers toyed with the West Indies in 2015. As seismic as those events were, they were all accommodated in the 17 days the stadium actually opens its doors to cricket in a year, which begs the question of how it’s able to sustain itself.
Nkwe to return to the Lions in technical post
Former Proteas assistant coach Enoch Nkwe is poised for a sensational return to domestic cricket in the role of interim Imperial Lions technical director – and is due to start his new job on Tuesday.
Still in the running: Gerda switches clubs in a move to go a notch up
For a number of years, marathon star runner Gerda Steyn was associated with the green and white colours of the Nedbank Running Club.
Now the affable athlete has been snapped up by Adidas Running Club in a move considered to be the biggest coup in local athletics in recent times.
World sports bodies strip Russia of right to host events
As Russian forces moved further into Ukraine on Friday, sports bodies quickly began to strip Russia of events, with Poland boycotting the World Cup play-off against Russia and St Petersburg no longer hosting the Champions League final, while Formula One’s Russia Grand Prix will no longer be held in Sochi.
Banyana’s road to the World Cup kicks off
The hard work must now begin for Banyana Banyana after they qualified for the 2022 Women’s Afcon.
Banyana booked their ticket to the tournament in Morocco following a
3-1 aggregate win over Algeria in the qualifiers in the middle of the week.
EP rugby boss calls Saru leaders ‘sell-outs’
In a scathing attack recently, Eastern Province rugby boss Maasdorp Cannon called the top leadership of the SA Rugby Union (Saru) “sell-outs”.