Racial quotas to be scrapped 07 Nov 2007 By: Richard Dickinson

South Africa's Ministry Of Sport has brought to an end team-representation quotas for the "previously disadvantaged". Sports minister Makhenkesi Stofile announced the change, and said that the focus will now be switched to capital investment, with upwards of 15,000,000 pounds being ploughed into helping black athletes at grassroots level.

The quotas policy, which has attracted considerable criticism from both inside and outside the country's borders and in many codes of sport, has been in place for over a decade, though many adjustments have been made to it in that time.

Mr. Stofile today announced an end to the policy: "Quotas are out," he said. "We are not going to decide who must be on the team. All we are saying is expose everybody, give them an opportunity."

He added: "Quotas were used only for window dressing for international consumption. We must kill the myth that black people cannot play certain sporting codes because they are black. Let us put our resources into the development of talent."

The likeliest cause for the change appears to be South Africa's rugby union World Cup victory, followed by claims that quotas were likely to make a repeat of such success unlikely.

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