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Sports Reporter

THE Sports and Recreation Commission are today expected to announce the list of medium-and-high-risk sport codes who are ready to resume their activities. 

Football and other sport codes, which have agreed to adhere to the cocktail of safety measures unveiled by the authorities, are expected to be part of the disciplines to be give the go-ahead. 

“The Sports and Recreation Commission is waiting for the statutory instrument to be gazetted, before it releases the list of medium-and-high risk sports, that can resume,’’ the SRC said in a statement. 

“The SI is now expected to be published on Friday 19 March.’’ 

During a press briefing on Wednesday, acting SRC director-general, Sebastian Garikai, said they wanted the associations, and clubs, to present them with calendars and schedules of events. 

“The associations, and clubs, should provide their registered venues, so that they are inspected, fumigated and also have signage because we will still need to keep and maintain social distance, and educate people around those venues. 

“We also putting in place compliance officers, we have compliance officers from the Ministry and SRC, they would be going around checking, and monitoring, to make sure sport is resuming in a safe environment. 

“For all this to work, it is important for us to have calendars, and a schedule of events approved, so that it is easier for monitoring and also it will be easier for the people that would want to follow sport. 

“Most of our sport is going to be followed through media, and you are the most important people, so please take sport to the people,” said Garikai. 

Meanwhile, Youth, Sport, Arts, and Recreation Minister, Kirsty Coventry, says they are still working on modalities on how schools sport can return safely. 

Already schools sport, for the low-risk codes, has been given the green-light, to resume. 

But, the Minister feels the stakes are higher, in the high-risk codes, and they were still consulting with their counterparts, in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, as well as the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education. 

Schools opened last week, for examination classes, while the rest of the classes resume next Monday. 

“Now that the medium-and-high-risk sport has been given the specific Standard Operating Procedures, what’s happening now is that there are consultations with the Sports Commission, Ministry of Education and schools, to try and see how, and what sports, they can allow. 

“Their SOPs might be very different because schools are not requiring their students to be tested every 14 days, so these are really things that we can put into place, in schools. 

“These SOPs are more for our national sport, national teams and national clubs. 

“From what we have seen regionally, what we have seen in South Africa, a lot of the schools have allowed all of their sport to get back, but just with no contact. 

“In South Africa, most of the sports, in terms of your medium-and-high-risk sport, netball, basketball, football, rugby, they are practicing but they are not necessarily playing any matches or games. 

“I think there is a way, in which we can allow all of our sports in schools to go back and be safe, but that is where we are now engaging with the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, as well as tertiary or even our universities. 

“We will have to come back to you with specifics on that but, obviously, as mentioned on Monday, any of the low-risk sports that don’t need to implement these specific SOPs can, obviously, go back and be played in schools,” said Coventry.