South Africa’s Netball President Cecilia Molokwane and her Executive Committee have met and reviewed the situation in the country together with the relevant government departments.
Following the announcement by South Africa President Ramaphosa that the lockdown level three restrictions have been reviewed and relaxed, the Executive and Netball South Africa President decided that netball activities should resume effective from Monday 8th February 2021.
“The decision to resume netball activities was not an easy one, because we are still amid a pandemic and we needed to be very careful on how we will do things going forward. This was a balancing act, because key to our list of priorities is ensuring that we preserve the lives of all our stakeholders whilst we play the sport we love. As the Executive together with our Events and Compliance teams, we have put measures in place that will enable us to make sure that we protect the lives of everyone,” said Cecilia Molokwane, Netball South Africa President.
The first event that will take place is the SPAR Challenge which was supposed to happen at the beginning of the year. The participating teams will be the SPAR Proteas, the SA President’s XII, the SPAR Baby Proteas (under 21), Uganda She Cranes and Namibia.
However, the She Cranes and Namibia are yet to confirm their participation.
The SPAR Challenge will take place under strict health and safety regulations, this tournament will happen in a biologically safe environment in Cape Town from the 24th to 31st of March 2021. The teams will meet for a pre-training camp between the 19th and 23rd of March 2021.
The SPAR Proteas team and SA President’s XII team were announced in December 2020. Dr Elsje Jordaan, head coach of the SPAR Baby Proteas, will announce her final team before the SPAR Challenge. She will use this series to get some game time for her players and get combinations right ahead of the under 21 Netball World Youth Cup in Fiji at the end of the year.
The tournament was supposed to take place from 20th to 27th January 2021 in Cape Town but on 8th of January, all planned netball activities had been suspended until further notice due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The tournament will act as a preparation tournament for both the teams ahead of the Netball World Cup.
