The time to support women's sport is now
Since the beginning of the year, it has been incredibly gratifying to have seen a huge show of support for women's sport in our country. This recognition of the continuous hard work and the excellent sport played by our women's teams have proven that sporting world is ready to embrace women's sport. In the Western Cape, we have hosted the Netball Quad Series, the T20 Women's Cricket World Cup and the Ice Hockey International Championships in Cape Town in the first half of this year.
The T20 Women's World Cup final saw an all-time record attendance at Newlands. It is clear that women's sport is growing at a rapid pace and bringing with it economic growth and international recognition of the Western Cape as a premium location to host sporting events.
Excitingly, over the next few days, we will see the start of another two large women's sporting events. The FIFA Women's World Cup starts today (20 July) hosted in Australia and New Zealand, with Banyana Banyana playing their first match on 23 July. The whole country celebrated last year when our women's team qualified to play in this tournament, and I hope that we will see the same level of support for them while they compete there.
On 28 July we will see the start of the Netball World Cup in Cape Town. This is truly a historic occasion for the city, as this is the first time this tournament will be hosted in Africa. International teams have already started arriving and we are expecting large numbers of travelling tourists to fill the venue to capacity. The Netball World Cup is another opportunity to cement the Western Cape as Africa's top sport venue host.
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Economically, women's sporting events are making an important contribution to our economy. The Netball World Cup event alone is predicted to bring an estimated boost of R68 million to our local economy. This translates to more jobs being created, more tourism and more potential investment interest in our province.
The time is now to ensure that we give our women's teams more exposure, more opportunities and more recognition for their achievements on the world's stages. We cannot and should not tolerate our female athletes being expected to accept second rate treatment or lesser salaries than their male counterparts. It is clear what value our national teams add including the immense pride that they bring us when competing internationally. We are now ideally poised to reach equal representation in the sporting sphere, and we should all play our part in celebrating both our female and male athletes.
As the Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport, we are working to nurture and develop the next generation of sporting men and women by supporting the growth of sporting codes at grassroots level. Through our after school programmes and our world-class shared facilities at schools across the province, we are supporting our young athletes to spend their free time participating in sport. We hope to grow the next generation of sporting stars through the work we are doing with youth.
We wish Banyana Banyana and the Spar Proteas the best for the upcoming World Cup tournaments! We know that they will fly the South African flag high and we call on all the people of the Western Cape to show their support!
