Forbes&nbsp;today released its annual ranking of the&nbsp;World’s 100 Highest-Paid&nbsp;athletes, who collectively earned $4 billion over the last 12 months, up 5% from last year’s earnings of $3.8 billion.&nbsp;



Lionel Messi&nbsp;was named the world’s highest-paid athlete for the first time, up from second place last year, with $127 million in total earnings. 



Messi unseats&nbsp;Floyd Mayweather,&nbsp;who held the crown last year, and was the leader four times in seven years. Behind Messi is longtime rival&nbsp;Cristiano Ronaldo&nbsp;(No. 2), who earned $109 million between his salary and endorsements.&nbsp;



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="How Rihanna Created A $600 Million Fortune—And Became The World’s Richest Female Musician (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2019/06/04/how-rihanna-created-a-600-million-fortune-and-became-the-worlds-richest-female-musician/" target="_blank">How Rihanna Created A $600 Million Fortune—And Became The World’s Richest Female Musician</a>



Serena Williams&nbsp;(No. 63) returned to the ranking, after no women appeared in 2018. Cost of admission to the 2019 list is the highest ever at $25 million, up $2.1 million from the previous year. Endorsement income experienced an increase of 12.5% to $987 million this year.



“The global impact of soccer is clearly reflected in earnings in 2019, with the top three athletes on the list being Messi, Ronaldo, and Neymar,” said&nbsp;Kurt Badenhausen, senior editor, Forbes Media. 



“But basketball players continue to dominate the top 100 overall with 35 athletes on the list earning a total of $1.29 billion, with 72% of that income coming from salaries rather than endorsement deals.”



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/billionaires/2019/06/03/artist-icon-billionaire-how-jay-z-created-his-1-billion-fortune/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Artist, Icon, Billionaire: How Jay-Z Created His $1 Billion Fortune (opens in a new tab)">Artist, Icon, Billionaire: How Jay-Z Created His $1 Billion Fortune</a>



The list of elite athletes consists of players from ten different sports. NBA stars lead with 35 basketball players among the top 100, down from 40 in 2018, headed by&nbsp;LeBron James&nbsp;(No. 8 with $89 million). 



Football was the next most-represented sport with 19 players, followed by baseball with 15, and soccer with 12.



There are 25 different countries represented on this year’s World’s Highest-Paid Athletes list, up from 22 in 2018. Americans dominate the action with 62 athletes thanks to the sky-high salaries in the major sports leagues. 



The U.K. has five athletes, France and Spain have three, while Brazil, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Serbia and Venezuela all have two.



Methodology:&nbsp;



Our earnings include prize money, salaries and bonuses earned between June 1, 2018 and June 1, 2019. Endorsement incomes are an estimate of sponsorships, appearance fees and licensing incomes for the same 12-month period based on conversations with dozens of industry insiders. We do not deduct for taxes or agents’ fees, and we don’t include investment income.



The World’s Top 10 Highest-Paid Athletes in 2019:



<table class="wp-block-table"><tbody><tr><td>Rank</td><td>Athlete</td><td>Sport</td><td>Salary/Winnings ($mil)</td><td>Endorsements ($mil)</td><td>Total Earnings ($mil)</td></tr><tr><td>1</td><td>Lionel Messi</td><td>Soccer</td><td>92</td><td>35</td><td>127</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>Cristiano Ronaldo</td><td>Soccer</td><td>65</td><td>44</td><td>109</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>Neymar</td><td>Soccer</td><td>75</td><td>30</td><td>105</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>Canelo Alvarez</td><td>Boxing</td><td>92</td><td>2</td><td>94</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>Roger Federer</td><td>Tennis</td><td>7.4</td><td>86</td><td>93.4</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>Russell Wilson</td><td>Football</td><td>80.5</td><td>9</td><td>89.5</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>Aaron Rodgers</td><td>Football</td><td>80.3</td><td>9</td><td>89.3</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>LeBron James</td><td>Basketball</td><td>36</td><td>53</td><td>89</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>Stephen Curry</td><td>Basketball</td><td>37.8</td><td>42</td><td>79.8</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>Kevin Durant</td><td>Basketball</td><td>30.4</td><td>35</td><td>65.4</td></tr></tbody></table>



-Forbes Corporate Communications; Forbes Staff

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Lionel Messi Claims Top Spot on Forbes’ 2019 List Of The World’s 100 Highest-Paid Athletes

Data from South Africa has shown that&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.iol.co.za/lifestyle/health/sa-a-growing-nation-of-obese-adults-1763279" target="_blank">over two thirds of young women</a> are overweight and obese. This predisposes them to non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. Most women are not exercising enough, and consumption of processed and calorie-dense foods and high amounts of sugar is common.



It was this knowledge that sparked the establishment of the&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="http://ahd.ca/research/helti-south-africa" target="_blank">Health Life Trajectories Initiative</a>. It’s being run in South Africa, India, China and Canada and aims to provide interventions that can help young women stay healthy before, during and after pregnancy. 



In South Africa, this randomised controlled trial will provide one-on-one support as well as peer group sessions to over 6000 young women. The idea is provide them with information, and to help them set and maintain goals for healthier lifestyles.



Researchers from the Medical Research Council and Wits University’s&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.wits.ac.za/dphru/" target="_blank">Developmental Pathways for Health Research Unit</a>&nbsp;are running the South African arm of the study. We wanted to start by better understanding our target population – that is, young women aged between 18 and 24 living in Soweto. 



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Local Solutions Can Boost Healthier Food Choices In South Africa (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/health/2019/03/15/local-solutions-can-boost-healthier-food-choices-in-south-africa/" target="_blank">Local Solutions Can Boost Healthier Food Choices In South Africa</a>



Soweto is a large, densely populated urban township which comprises one third of Johannesburg’s population. Soweto is becoming rapidly urbanised, but the majority of people are still very poor and struggle to provide food for their families.



<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1499404619301782" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">We conducted</a>&nbsp;a series of focus group discussions and in depth interviews to unravel health behaviours, barriers and facilitators to wellbeing and health with young women from Soweto who had not yet had a child. We also asked them about what sorts of interventions they’d prefer to support and guide them.



The women offered important insights that showed it’s not enough to simply promote healthy eating and exercise without considering the very real environmental and structural constraints present in South Africa.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Barriers to healthy choices</h2>



The 29 participants spoke about many different facets of health. These included happiness and mental wellbeing, faith, social support, body image, and lifestyle behaviours.



They identified many barriers to healthy eating, among them the cost of and access to healthy food options. Some women also said they had little access to exercise facilities such as gyms and were afraid to exercise on the streets because they feared being assaulted or harassed. One woman said:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">No, I don’t feel safe because we have drug addicts, traffic, women trafficking: it’s not safe for us to walk in the streets.</blockquote>



The women we interviewed painted a picture of an environment in which healthy behaviours are difficult to implement or sustain. One said:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">Small businesses that are opening up in my community and they all sell fries, literally they just all sell fries…</blockquote>



Women told us that cheap and unhealthy fast foods are on every street corner: “bunny chow” – hollowed out bread stuffed with curry – vetkoek (a fried dough bread stuffed with different fillings) and fried chips are affordable and available within a few steps of most houses. As a result, women did not want to go out of their way to purchase healthier, more expensive foods.



Our interviewees also didn’t feel able to demand that healthier food be bought for their homes, because many were not contributing financially and were therefore not in a position to control food purchases. Women reported being financially dependant on relatives and male partners.



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Exercise</h2>



They also said that opportunities for physical activity were neither provided nor prioritised for women in Soweto. Some women said that a lack of facilities made it difficult for them to participate in any exercise, as they did not have access to gyms or fields to exercise.



Other women told us that there were gyms, sports grounds, parks, and even free aerobics classes at community halls in their area. However these facilities often get vandalised quickly, and can no longer be used. More importantly, they didn’t feel safe enough to exercise on the streets, perhaps by jogging or running. They also felt unsafe walking around in leggings or tights. Women were fearful of human trafficking, sexual assault, and violence –&nbsp;<a href="http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/12218" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">very real issues in this community</a>.



Crucially, our research found that young women did not see obesity as a sufficient reason to change their behaviour. But they said they would be motivated to exercise and eat better if they were diagnosed with a non-communicable disease like diabetes.



This suggests that obesity has become normalised in South Africa – and this needs to be addressed.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Policy interventions</h2>



These findings are now being worked into our interventions, and we are cognisant of the contextual realities that may affect young women’s ability to change their lifestyles. We hope that this research, along with whatever findings emerge from our interventions, will inform policy makers and motivate them to implement necessary changes in this community.



Women in Soweto and in South Africa in general need support to live healthier lifestyles. This support needs to come from policy makers. If South Africa does not step up and support young women by providing them with access to safe spaces and affordable healthier foods, and by controlling the oversupply of unhealthy options, the country may not be able to curb its ever increasing rise in obesity and related non-communicable diseases.



-Alessandra Prioreschi: Associate Director and Researcher at the Developmental Pathways for Health Research Unit (DPHRU), University of the Witwatersrand



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Young women in Soweto, South Africa, say healthy living is hard. Here’s why

On Serena Williams’ calendar—which is to calendars what Jackson Pollock paintings are to art—Saturdays are designated family time. The Saturday I’m with her in Rome (she was in New York earlier in the week and will be in Paris the following one) carries extra significance. Exactly four years ago, in exactly that Eternal City, she met her husband, Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of online community Reddit. 



The two celebrate, in part, with the kind of outing anyone who’s not the most famous woman athlete in the world takes for granted: a stroll in a hotel garden with their joint venture, 22-month-old Olympia, in tow. It’s more romantic than it sounds: The Rome Cavalieri goes so far as to call its 15-acre garden a “private park,” littered with marble and bronze, lions and unicorns.



The regal surroundings befit a historic figure of American sport, who has 23 Grand Slam titles and has blown away any number of barriers and stereotypes. And the unicorns? Between Reddit and his <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2018/07/09/at-initialized-capital-odd-couple-alexis-ohanian-and-garry-tan-look-to-do-vc-differently/#538f46b63efe" target="_blank">$500 million fund, Initialized Capital</a>, Ohanian does his part. But it turns out that Williams has quietly been playing that game, too. 



She’s now the first athlete ever to hit Forbes’ annual list of the World’s Richest Self-Made Women, with an estimated fortune of $225 million, the vast majority of it having come via her brain and brand rather than her backhand. And over the past five years, she’s been quietly dropping money into 34 startups. In April, Williams formally announced that Serena Ventures is open for business, to fund others and launch companies herself.



Athletes are richer than ever, thanks to the explosion in TV rights fees for live sporting events, which trickle down to players. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2018/06/05/mayweather-messi-lead-the-worlds-highest-paid-athletes-2018/#8d0173f2e26b" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">50 highest-paid athletes</a>&nbsp;in the world made $2.6 billion last year, versus $1 billion 15 years ago. And Williams is hardly the first to put newfound disposable income to active work—in the NBA alone, LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2019/02/12/the-nbas-highest-paid-players-2019-lebron-james-leads-with-89-million/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">all launched media companies</a>, and Durant, Andre Iguodala and Carmelo Anthony are active venture capital investors. But she is one of the few specifically gearing investments around a single north star: herself.



“I want to be a part of it,” she says, sitting at the hotel. “I want to be in the infrastructure. I want to be the brand, instead of just being the face.” Given her longtime background in style and design, that means overweighting on fashion lines, jewelry and beauty products. Yes, she’ll keep competing at tennis—her resilient comeback last year after giving birth burnished her as a cultural icon who transcends sports. And sure, she’ll happily continue to rake in easy endorsement money from the likes of Nike and JPMorgan Chase—her $29 million total income over the past 12 months is the highest of her career.&nbsp;



But like a ground stroke with torque, Williams bets she can eventually dwarf those figures by leveraging some of her own cash with her name and fame.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5cf542ffcd1f12000a2b45f8/1920x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Serena Williams"/><figcaption>Power Game: Williams invested in 34 startups over the past five years. The value of her portfolio has doubled to more than $10 million.ADAM PRETTY/GETTY IMAGES</figcaption></figure>



The story of how sisters Serena and Venus Williams reached the top of the tennis world is the stuff of Hollywood legend: A black father with limited tennis experience homeschools his two daughters and teaches them on the streets of Compton, California, to penetrate and then dominate a lily-white sport. “You’d see different people walking down the street with AK-47s and think, &#8216;Time to get in the house,&#8217;” she remembers of those early years. “When you hear gunshots, you get low.



Their father’s insistence that his precocious daughters avoid the private tennis academy machine and well-oiled junior tournament circuit left a mark on the younger one, especially after she won her first Grand Slam title at age 17. “It really shaped me for the rest of my career both on and off the court in terms of taking a chance and how to be different and how to stand out,” Williams says of his strategy. When everyone zigs, she zags.



So at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.serenaventures.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Serena Ventures</a>, she focuses on companies founded by women and minorities. Yes, there’s a social purpose to that decision. But as with her tennis upbringing, she’s also finding opportunity by avoiding the herd. Just&nbsp;<a href="https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/the-vc-female-founders-dashboard" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2.3% of the total venture capital</a>invested last year in the U.S. went to women-led startups—and even when including firms with both a male and female founder, you’re just at 10%. The numbers are worse for black and Hispanic founders. Yet some 60% of Williams’ investments so far have gone to companies led by women or people of color. “What better way to preach that message?” asks Williams.



The only way to find enough of those companies right now is to nurture them early, something that Williams got hooked on after investing and losing (eventually) $250,000 in a startup in the years before Serena Ventures. “I learned you can’t overspend, but I also learned that I love seed investing,” she says. Of the 34 companies she’s backed through Serena Ventures, more than three quarters are early-stage.&nbsp;



“It’s fun to get in there. I don’t gamble. I don’t jump off buildings,” says Williams. “I’m the most non-taking-a-chance kind of a person, but I felt like seed was where we wanted to be.”&nbsp;



Given the exponential riskiness involved in pre- and early-revenue companies, Williams has built a team of Silicon Valley mentors around her, much as Patrick Mouratoglou has guided Williams on the court and WME’s Jill Smoller has handled her endorsements—almost a quarter-billion worth—for nearly two decades. There’s Chris Lyons, from Andreessen Horowitz, who is an informal advisor and friend. “She is more passionate than 99% of the people in this space,” says Lyons. “She’s reaching out to me regularly asking what we think of companies.”



There’s Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, a longtime friend, with whom she serves on the board of SurveyMonkey.&nbsp;“I always ask her advice in a lot of different areas,” Williams says. (The tennis star is also on the board of the social shopping platform Poshmark.)



But one mentor stands above the rest—the one she married. “I’ve been really leaning on Alexis,” she says. Williams had never heard of Reddit when the pair met in 2015 and Ohanian knew little about tennis. But they bonded over ambition. “She is determined to be great at everything she does,” says Ohanian, who&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates is worth $70 million on his own.&nbsp;



His venture firm’s targets are traditionally more tech-focused—big scores include Instacart and Patreon. But in living through Ohanian’s deals, Williams has learned. Initialized and Serena Ventures have even co-invested on a few, including Gobble, which does weekly dinner-kit deliveries, and Wave, which offers no-fee transfers on money sent to Africa by phone. “I’d like to call us a more modern business family,” says Williams.



The rate of Williams’ investments has ramped up in lockstep with the onboarding of a portfolio manager. Alison Rapaport, 29, was fresh out of Harvard Business School with an M.B.A. after a five-year stint in JPMorgan’s asset-management group, when she got connected with Williams through Andreessen’s Lyons. Williams told Rapaport to come to the interview with three investment ideas, along with the numbers and rationale behind them. Rapaport did her homework on the investment ideas—and diligence on her potential new boss, who earlier in the week posted on Instagram how much she liked Taco Sunday. Rapaport arrived at Williams’ home outside San Francisco for a Sunday meeting at noon armed with investment ideas and two bags of takeout, make-your-own tacos, and she handled Ohanian’s rapid-fire follow-up emails with aplomb. “I knew this was our girl,” Williams says.&nbsp;



Serena Williams slides around the red clay of the Tennis Club Parioli in Rome a few days ahead of the Italian Open, practicing to an eclectic mix of musical genres whose only commonality is that they’re sung by powerful women, from Rihanna to Adele to Pink. As word spreads around the club that the world’s most famous tennis player is hitting balls in their midst, a crowd predictably gathers, the youngest among them squealing, “Serena!”, the oldest snapping and sharing pictures.



Williams is by far the most famous female athlete in the U.S.—and only Tom Brady and Tiger Woods finish a tick ahead among all athletes in terms of public awareness. And that fame carries almost no brand downside—her appeal rates above average across all demographics, from Millennials to blue collar to high income, says Henry Schafer, who tracks Q Scores, which measure the likeability of a celebrity.



After 20 years in the spotlight, Williams knows how to handle the star power. At the end of the two-hour session, she gracefully obliges several with autographs and selfies. But more important: She has figured out at Serena Ventures how to harness it.



The past decade has given rise to the celebrity VC investor, spurred by the success of people like the actor Ashton Kutcher and the musician Nas, who both have their own funds. The recent IPOs for Uber and Lyft included scores of musicians and Hollywood A-listers like Gwyneth Paltrow, Jay-Z and Olivia Munn, who got in early and cashed in big. Overall, Ohanian is skeptical of the trend.



 “The advice I generally give to founders is don’t take money from celebrities,” he says. “The only exception is when they are really going to add value. Because in most cases, they are not really familiar with this world and if you are doing it to feed your ego, it’s a bad idea.”



So Williams tries to put money in deals where her fame and brand and platform grow the pie. As one of the better product endorsers of this century, it’s something she’s honed in ways that most musicians and actors (who turn up their noses at most product deals) have not. She counts nearly 30 million followers across social media—her posts of herself wearing Nike’s swoosh generated more than $2 million in promotional value for the brand over the past 12 months, according to Hookit, which tracks celebrity influence on social media. “Serena is a once-in-a-generation voice, reaching a global audience that extends well beyond tennis,” says Hookit CEO Scott Tilton.



And that voice is amplified exponentially when dealing with an early-stage brand, rather than one like Nike. She shared a pair of videos in an Instagram story of her entourage eating Daily Harvest meals ahead of her hosting duties for the Met Gala. 



She collaborated with Neighborhood Goods, which brings a pop-up approach to retailing, for her clothing line. “Using her platform to talk about our mission was the biggest support we’ve had besides her capital,” says Georgina Gooley, cofounder of Billie, which makes razors priced to eliminate the “pink tax” that makes female-targeted products cost more than similar versions for men.



The dating and networking app Bumble added Williams as an endorser for 2019, including a Super Bowl ad. The pair also partnered in a pitch competition in which two winners with female founders were chosen for funding from Serena and Bumble. 



Three executives of companies in the Serena Ventures portfolio—Daily Harvest, the woman-centric co-working space The Wing, and Lola, a natural tampon brand—networked at the first-ever Bumble Fund Summit in April. “She is facilitating a place for people to connect with one another,” says Jordana Kier, Lola’s founder.



That kind of investor-as-rainmaker power translates into another benefit: deal flow. For more mature deals, traditional venture firms need to take large ownership stakes to hit return targets. Williams, though, is happy to ride along. “Firms know Serena is a hugely valuable strategic investor,” says Ohanian. “I think it is the best of all opportunities, and she can essentially cherry-pick from the top VC firms on deals that are interesting that come her way and at the same time she still has her own deal flow from folks who want her to invest.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5cf544339736330008aae5e7/1920x0.jpg?cropX1=0&amp;cropX2=2000&amp;cropY1=204&amp;cropY2=1088" alt="Serena Williams"/><figcaption>Change Agent: &#8220;A lot of people say what I do on the court is amazing, but I feel like that’s just the beginning,&#8221; says Serens Williams. &#8220;I want to be remembered for things I do off the court; lives I’ve been able to impact and voices that have been heard. Picture: LEVON BISS FOR FORBES</figcaption></figure>



Another benefit of early-stage investing: Even with 34 checks written, she has still sunk only an estimated $6 million into these companies. As venture investing goes, given her net worth, it’s still low-risk stuff. And the returns so far seem promising; Serena Ventures says they currently value the portfolio at more than $10 million and double the initial investment. Nearly half of the companies have had follow-up rounds of venture investment since Williams invested, and Serena Ventures even seems poised to score its first exit after Unilever announced plans to buy supplement firm Olly Nutrition in April. Five of her investments are up at least fivefold. Top performers include Billie, Daily Harvest, MasterClass and The Wing.



But Serena Williams wouldn’t be one of the all-time great competitors without also needing to invest more in herself. While she’s known as a fashion icon, she has cashed in only via others’ platforms, whether through endorsements or partnerships. Now that’s changing. Smoller, her longtime endorsement agent, recalls a recent meeting at Nike. “I was talking, and Serena interrupted me and started asking all these questions about their distribution channels, KPIs and growth strategies,” he says. “I looked around and saw their faces. . . . She’s at a level where she wants to understand the process and methods, which I think a lot of people don’t expect.”&nbsp;In May last year, Serena Ventures launched a self-funded, direct-to-consumer clothing line, S by Serena. She kept waiting for someone to fund a company for her to design clothing, she says, but “I was thinking of this the wrong way. I had to invest in myself.”&nbsp;



The line includes dresses, jackets, tops, denim and more, mostly priced under $200. She’s excited about an S by Serena show for New York Fashion Week in September. The line got a boost in October when Williams’ close friend Meghan Markle was spotted wearing the collection’s “Boss” blazer, which quickly sold out on the website. Williams returned the favor when she hosted a baby shower for the Duchess of Sussex in February. Williams plans to launch an S by Serena jewelry line this year and one of beauty products in 2020.&nbsp;



With all this commerce, Williams says she’ll continue to abbreviate her on-the-court schedule, prioritizing the Grand Slam events that burnish her brand. While a dinosaur in the tennis world at 37, she still figures she has two or maybe even three years left. “I am in no rush to get out of this sport,” she says. But in Serena Ventures, she’s laid the foundation to keep playing the game her entire life. “I want to create a brand that has longevity, kind of like my career,” she says. “It’s not fancy, it’s not here, it’s not out, it’s not trendy, it’s a staple, like my tennis game.”



&#8211;Kurt Badenhausen; Forbes Staff

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Inside Serena Williams’ Plan To Ace Venture Investing

From being in the presence of two South African presidents
to high-fiving the third, South Africa’s national women’s football team coach
Desiree Ellis is determined to grab headlines at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in
France.&nbsp; 



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As the country celebrates 25 years of democracy since the
fall of apartheid, South Africa’s women’s football team Banyana Banyana will
make a landmark appearance at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, to be held
between June 7 and July 7 in France.



&nbsp;The years of toil,
tears and sweaty perseverance beyond the pitch are indescribable for the team’s
coach Desiree Ellis months after qualifying for the acclaimed international
football championship.



When we meet her, she vividly recalls the qualifying match,
one of the most defining moments of her career. 



With 10 minutes left to the final whistle, as tension
mounted on the field, Ellis ascended a ladder for a closer look as history
unfolded, that day in 2018 in Ghana. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="410" height="617" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Soccer3.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41373" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Soccer3.png 410w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Soccer3-300x451.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Soccer3-199x300.png 199w" sizes="(max-width: 410px) 100vw, 410px" /><figcaption>Banyana Banyana Coach Desiree Ellis. Picture: Gypseenia Lion </figcaption></figure></div>



“I knew we were 10 minutes away but in football, anything
can happen,” she says. 



Ellis recalls a previous World Cup qualifier when things
went completely wrong. 



In 2014, Banyana lost to Nigeria during a semi-final
qualifying game. After the match, the mood was somber as the team drove home,
she recounts. It’s moments like those that make this 2019 qualification that
much more precious for Ellis. 



As they faced Mali’s national team, The Eagles, in the 2018
Africa Women Cup of Nations (AWCON) tournament hosted in Ghana, a tired and
overworked Banyana team played to their fullest leaving Ellis with no choice
but to scream in celebration of their ultimate victory.



 “I tried to stay calm so that the players could be calm. They kept shouting ‘manage the game’ and we kept control of the game fantastically. We were leading two-nil and when they said two minutes I could’ve screamed.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“When the final whistle went, the scenes were amazing. Oh goodness, you just didn’t know where to run, who to hug or what to do,” Ellis exults. </blockquote>



A solid defence strategy mixed with a patriotic passion for
both the game and teamwork ensured an eventual win.&nbsp; 



“Many of them were there in 2014 when we didn’t qualify and
for a lot of them, it might have been the last opportunity to go to a world
cup. That really drove them. We needed to take it seriously and make sure we
don’t go to the third and fourth place.”



Armed with renewed confidence and a French translation book
to speak and understand basic French, Ellis is equipped to lead the women’s
team to possible glory at the international championship this month.



&nbsp;She owes her passion
for the sport to her community where she started playing at the tender age of
six. Back then, little did she know how far soccer would take her – or how far
she would take soccer.&nbsp; 



If that six-year-old girl from Salt River, a Cape Town suburb, had looked into a crystal ball at the time, she would have seen herself lead the team she once played for, and also rub shoulders with three South African presidents.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Thembi Kgatlana’s Long And Hard Road to Houghston (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2019/01/09/thembi-kgatlanas-long-and-hard-road-to-houghston/" target="_blank">Thembi Kgatlana’s Long And Hard Road to Houghston</a>



&nbsp;“When you talk about
significant moments, it most probably is your first game, your first cap or
being made captain but I think those are small milestones. I have had the
privilege of having lunch with the late President Nelson Mandela, with a lot of
other athletes in Cape Town, at his residence,” she tells FORBES AFRICA. 



Ellis has also received a presidential silver medal from
president Thabo Mbeki and interacted with former president Jacob Zuma when she
was an ambassador for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.&nbsp; 



“We played a game in Cape Town during the World Cup. The
game was 10 minutes before the Argentina game, and I came off the field as
president Zuma came on and we high-fived each other.



“It comes with the work you put in. I don’t think many
people can be fortunate to say that they have interacted with all three
presidents.”



Ellis regards the role leaders play as an important one in
relation to sport, particularly when it comes to creating opportunities for the
marginalized.



“When president Nelson Mandela was released, I got the
opportunity to play national football. Prior to that I never played. I was 30
years old,” she says. 



Her unwavering focus on the game, she adds, and the many
sacrifices she has had to make along the way changed her story from just
playing soccer with boys on the streets of Salt River to achieving national
glory. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="926" height="615" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Soccer2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41375" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Soccer2.png 926w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Soccer2-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Soccer2-600x398.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Soccer2-768x510.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 926px) 100vw, 926px" /><figcaption>Banyana Banyana Coach Desiree Ellis holds a portrait of the team in 1993. Picture: Gypseenia Lion</figcaption></figure>



Her career goals even left her financially vulnerable, at
times. At the peak of her football career, a young Ellis, who worked at a local
butchery, had left for a football weekend and could not make it back to her workplace
in time to mix spices. That lapse resulted in her losing her job.



&nbsp; “Knowing your worth
can open doors,” she advises as she speaks to us at the state-of-the-art
headquarters of the South African Football Association (SAFA) in Johannesburg.



“Our federation is excited that they took the opportunity to
appoint female coaches for female teams. Most importantly, it is not just
making those decisions in appointing us, but also supporting us.”



Support does not only come from management but also fans who
play a role in encouraging the women to reach their potential – both on and off
the field. 



“We played in Cameroon in 2016 and the stadiums were packed, we played in Ghana and there were full stadiums. We came to Port Elizabeth and they [fans] were the 12th and 13th players for Banyana. The best fans we had [were] in Durban. It was absolutely amazing, and it [support] hasn’t only grown on the stands but on the field as well. The Under-17 team qualified for the World Cup, so it shows how the game has grown,” says Ellis. 



Although local leagues for women have increased on home
soil, there needs to be more opportunities that give African players a chance
to break into the sport and develop their global competitive edge. 



It starts with prioritizing junior levels. 



“Players are getting opportunities to study. I remember back
when we were playing, you were either unemployed or you had a job and 80 to 90
percent of the players were unemployed back then. If you look at the national
team now, 80 to 90 percent of the players have a degree or are currently still
studying. Players are getting opportunities to study or play abroad. We have a
lot of players playing abroad but I think more can be done.”



As a national asset, Ellis argues that focusing on the game
is far more important than worrying about issues that are beyond control. 



Once focus is lost, it manifests in all areas.&nbsp; 



“When people ask me about the money, I tell them I am a
technical person. You tend to concentrate more on your job as a coach and leave
the rest, because you can get side-tracked by all the other things. We don’t
worry about those things,” she says.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="945" height="611" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Soccer4-1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41377" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Soccer4-1.png 945w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Soccer4-1-300x194.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Soccer4-1-600x388.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Soccer4-1-768x497.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 945px) 100vw, 945px" /><figcaption>Desiree Ellis and Portia Modise&#8217;s portraits at the SAFA headquarters. Picture: Gypsenia Lion</figcaption></figure>



“As a technical person, your job is to prepare the team, [use] the training sessions to improve the individual and the team. That is why we have a manager, but when it influences team performance, I come in.” 



As the national team jets off to face world soccer, Ellis is
working round the clock to ensure that the team will make the nation proud. 



“Coaching is not just blowing the whistle, there are other
things in between. You need a schedule; people want to know what you are doing.
You have to do reports as well, so it is not about blowing the whistle at the
end of the game.” 



It’s also about analyzing the opponents with the technical
team and coming up with strategies and a definitive plan of action. 



“Playing against top countries is difficult as they play
regularly against other top countries. That is where you want to measure
yourself and that is where you really want to go out and bloom. People call it
the group of death, but it is what it is. We will just take it one game at a
time.



“If we do more, football in Africa can only grow and grow.”



It seems more work happens off the field than on the field,
and Ellis, who prides herself on her technical prowess, hopes Banyana will pull
up its socks and bring home a glistening&nbsp;
cup.

Desiree

How Banyana Banyana Coach Desiree Ellis Has Become A Game Changer

Early last year the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.iaaf.org/home" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">International Association of Athletics Federations</a>(IAAF) introduced regulations requiring South African 800m Olympic champion&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/caster-semenya" target="_blank">Caster Semenya</a>&nbsp;– and other middle distance runners with differences of sex development – to lower their naturally high levels of testosterone.



In February 2019 Semenya’s legal team argued that the policy was invalid. But in May the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tas-cas.org/en/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">Court of Arbitration for Sport</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/may/01/caster-semenya-loses-landmark-legal-case-iaaf-athletics">ruled</a>&nbsp;that discrimination in sport is legal provided it is justified.



The way in which the IAAF has gone about dealing with Semenya raises serious legal and ethical concerns. And Semenya isn’t the only athlete involved. This is an issue that goes beyond just the difference of sex development. It goes to the fundamental root of human dignity, of privacy of every athlete who participates at the World Championships.



There are ethical concerns about the way in which the research was conducted that led to the decision. The legal concerns revolve around serious fundamental rights concerns, in particular in the way a number of female athletes have been treated.



In a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sportsandtaxation.com/2017/01/you-can-play-as-long-as-you-dont-win-legal-perspectives-on-the-regulations-pertaining-to-the-participation-of-women-with-hyperandrogenism-in-womens-athletics/">paper</a>&nbsp;I wrote two years ago – “You can play as long as you don’t win: Legal perspectives on the regulations pertaining to the participation of women with hyperandrogenism in women’s athletics” – I explored the big ethical and legal problems I believe are involved in Semenya’s case, as well as those of dozens of other women.



My view is that some women are being singled out because they are different. If Semenya looked different, if she was a blonde bombshell or if she didn’t win, we wouldn’t be having this debate today.



My big concern is that if this ruling by the Court for Arbitration in Sport remains unchallenged, this way of thinking and behaving might filter into the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.olympic.org/the-ioc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">International Olympic Committee</a>, the overarching body that regulates sport. That, in turn, will affect all its affiliations. These include the national Olympic committees and international federations like the IAAF and Fifa and the national associations under them.



That’s fundamentally wrong.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The ethics question</h2>



The first problem lies in the way in which the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">World Anti-Doping Authority</a>&nbsp;has behaved. The World Anti-Doping Authority and national anti-doping authorities – which operate parallel to the other sporting bodies – are supposed to be independent. The World Anti-Doping Authority should be a completely separate, independent body that checks on the sports federations to ensure they enforce anti-doping measures uniformly and in a correct manner.



In reality, this isn’t the case.



This is how it works. At an event like the World Athletic Championships, it will be responsible for conducting the anti-doping tests. It will set up its own anti-doping control stations; collect the samples.



As part of the process athletes who enter agreements to participate in World Athletic Championships will also give consent to the World Anti-Doping Authority to conduct these tests. Part of that consent is also that the agency will, in terms of the rules, keep these samples for up to 10 years. They can re-test later for substances but they can also conduct research on anti-doping matters.



That’s important.



What happened in practice was that in 2011 and 2013 the IAAF instructed athletes to give both urine and blood samples. The reason given was that they were developing what is called a biological passport. This is an athlete’s biological profile that’s developed over a period of time. A sudden anomaly could indicate that there’s a doping or some other issue.



The problem is that IAAF passed these samples onto its medical team, the medical commission, which conducted its own research to determine the hormone levels of the athletes.



The argument being forwarded by the IAAF is that this is about doping. But the World Anti-Doping Agency ruled that the regulations on hyper-androgenism or difference of sex development have nothing to do with anti-doping.



This raises the question: if biological samples that have been collected for one purpose by one entity are passed onto another entity to do research for which consent has not been given, is this a lawful use of that sample?



The basis of modern ethical biological research and medical treatment is the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">Declaration of Helsinki</a>. Though not an internationally legally binding document, it’s nevertheless set the standard for a lot of countries, including South Africa, that have developed their own biomedical laws.



In South Korea – where the tests took place – the Helsinki Declaration led to the adoption of the Bioethics and Safety Act. This states that to conduct any form of biomedical research you need the informed consent of the individuals. But none of the athletes – and I have spoken to a number who have participated at these championships – have been informed these samples could be used on hormone research.



Lots of countries have similar rules. For example Monaco, where the IAAF is based, has a strong requirement that there must be proper, informed consent.



One thing all of these laws have in common is that the consent can be withdrawn at any stage and there should be no penalty for that. And it’s a criminal offence if one does not obtain the proper, informed consent.



This issue has been raised repeatedly with the IAAF throughout the process. But to no avail.



I’m still to see that there is a single form or indication that any athlete has been properly informed of the nature of the research conducted, who will conduct the research, what the possible consequences are, what it means for the athlete and how their identity is being protected in the process.



The IAAF has not been able to produce any of this. And the Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed these arguments and considered all the evidence that had been collected in spite of the lack of informed consent.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Human rights</h4>



The second major issue relates to massive human rights concerns.



The rights I’m referring to are set out in the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">European Convention on Human Rights</a>, in particular Articles 2 and 8.



Let me begin with Article 8 which I believe should have been applied and was in fact raised before the court. It provides that everyone has the right to respect for private and family life. In the case of&nbsp;<a href="https://swarb.co.uk/solomakhin-v-ukraine-echr-15-mar-2012/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">Solomakhin v Ukraine</a>, for example, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that any compulsory medical intervention, even if it was of a minor importance, constituted an interference with this right.



Effectively coercing a healthy athlete into taking hormone treatment is certainly a compulsory medical intervention. They can argue that she has the choice. But there is no choice.



For its part, Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine provides that the interest of welfare of each human being takes precedence over the interest of society.



Even the IAAF’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.iaaf.org/about-iaaf/documents/constitution">constitution</a>, in article 3, gives a commitment to human rights with ethical values, while the Olympic Charter is against any form of discrimination and is for the promotion of women, equality of men and women, sport for all.



These have all been laid bare as empty promises.



-Steve Cornelius; Professor of Private Law, University of Pretoria



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caster1

Caster Semenya: The Legal And Ethical Issues That Should Concern Us All

Soccer players from the continent are kicking it up a notch as they become instrumental in their European teams contesting championships.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



A number of African footballers have excelled at their
European clubs in the 2018/19 season, growing their reputations and showcasing
the skill, artistry and power of players from the continent. 



But there have also been some new names to savor, players who
have stepped out of the shadows to boost their reputation and suggest they can
become not just stars in their own countries, but also on the global stage. 



Belgian coach Tom Saintfiet, who led Gambia in the recent
Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, has worked extensively in Africa and Europe,
and is highly-regarded for his tactical acumen and views on the game.



He keeps a keen eye on African players in Europe every week
and says there has been much to admire this season.



“You have to start at Liverpool with Mo Salah and Sadio
Mané,” Saintfiet tells FORBES AFRICA. 



“The impact that their goals have had for the club has been
immense and if they win the English (Premier) League, for the first time in 29
years, this season, then you can truly say this would be a triumph made in
Africa.”



Egyptian forward Salah and Senegalese striker Mane are
arguably the two outstanding talents from the continent in Europe, at present,
but Saintfiet reveals there is much more to admire.



“Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alex Iwobi at Arsenal have
had excellent seasons too, even if their team has struggled, a bit, at times.
But you cannot ignore the contribution they have made.



“But one player that has really stood out for me, who is
maybe a surprise, is Adam Ounas from Napoli. For me, he is the future. He is
only 22 years old, but he is already a fantastic player.”



The winger has had a growing influence at Napoli this season
as they emerged as the only real challengers to Juventus for the Serie A title,
even if they were some way off the pace in the end.



“He can score goals and provide assistance, and at his age,
his potential is simply huge,” Saintfiet says. 



“He played against my Gambian side for Algeria and I saw
that day a player who can become a star of the game. His opportunities with the
national team have been a little limited because of the quality of the
competition he faces, but I think in the next few years, he will emerge as a
top player from the continent.”



Another who was relatively unknown before the start of the
season was Togolese defender Djené Dakonam Ortega, who has been inspirational
for surprise-package Getafe CF in the Spanish LaLiga. Ortega has been virtually
ever-present for the side in what many consider the best league in the world,
and has played a large role in making Getafe challengers for the UEFA Champions
League.



“He can play as a left-back or a right-back, and sometimes
in the centre too, and he has been very consistent this season. He is a very
hard-working footballer who has obvious natural ability,” Saintfiet says.



“I don’t think anybody expected Getafe to have the kind of
season they are having, they have been exceptional. I doubt many people had
heard of Djené before the start of the season either, but they will know him
now.”



Saintfiet is also full of praise for Tanzanian striker
Mbwana Samatta, who has been banging in the goals for Genk in Belgium and
turned them into surprise championship challengers.



“He is scoring a lot of goals, the best season of his
career. I don’t think anybody in Belgium expected Genk to be challenging for
the league, but Samatta’s goals have given them the chance to do that.



“He has made a big contribution to the team and, in my
opinion, he is ready for a higher level [league].”



Saintfiet also pointed out the quality of Ivory Coast
striker Nicolas Pépé at French Ligue 1 side Lille, Burkina Faso forward
Bertrand Traoré at Lyon and Senegal defender Kalidou Koulibaly from Napoli.



He has also been impressed by the Champions League exploits
of Cameroon goalkeeper André Onana, who plays for Ajax Amsterdam.



“He is a very good goalkeeper, but you know in the Dutch
league, he plays for a team [Ajax] that is very dominant and so it is hard to
judge his ability. Ajax do not allow their opponents to create many chances, so
Onana is, maybe, not tested as much as many other keepers.



“But having watched him closely in the Champions League, it
is a different story. There he has been able to show what he can do and for a
young goalkeeper, he has acquitted himself very well.



“He will get even better, but he has good physical attributes and comes from a country [Cameroon] that is renowned for producing very good goalkeepers.”



&#8211;Nick Said

gettyimages-1148837644-594×594

Africa’s Stars In Europe

A game does not end when the final whistle blows. Its impact
reverberates throughout a community when the stadiums are empty. Former rugby
captain John Smit, in his role as CEO of a security company, has ensured that
the tournaments are alive and kicking.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



As captain of the World Cup-winning Springboks in 2007, John
Smit was, “Mr Right Place, Right Time”. He was the centerpiece that connected
management to the players and the players to the fans. 



His talents have evolved into the commercial sphere, where
he now sits and curates a partnership that could save rugby and have a much
more meaningful impact on the communities whose lives revolve around club
rugby.



Security and maintenance company SSG Group – for which Smit
is acting CEO – were, in March, named co-sponsors for the Gold Cup, a rugby
tournament steeped in the blood and sweat of community involvement. 



“A lot of our clientele are the mines in the North West and Limpopo area,” Smit says.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/driving-ambition/2019/03/25/bryan-habana-swaps-sweatpants-for-suits/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Bryan Habana Swaps Sweatpants For Suits (opens in a new tab)">Bryan Habana Swaps Sweatpants For Suits</a>



“Those communities are massively passionate about the game
and we wanted to show that this company not only wanted to leave a footprint
within the community using SMEs but also, we wanted to help keep a tournament
alive that is quite important to a lot of them. 



“It was really just to show our gratitude for the community
that we were allowed to work within. I met the Rustenburg Impala Rugby Club
guys a few weeks ago and rugby is really important around that mining area. 



“It’s a massive part of their culture and their working
environment. When this thing happened, Jorge Ferreira (SSG Group CEO) called me
to get my thoughts on what this sponsorship would entail. I said to him it’s an
unbelievable partnership because everyone wants to go straight to the top but
this is where the real rugby starts and ends.”



Fans pack the creaky stands, making a ruckus and cheering
uninhibitedly for their sons, fathers and uncles as they put their bodies
through the dirt for the sheer pleasure of it. 



In most communities where club rugby is played, it’s the only
recreational outlet with the gravitas that pulls 12,000 people to a game, like
last year’s Pirates Grand Challenge Final between Villagers Worcester and Roses
United in Worcester last year.



Put into perspective, 14,000 people watched the Stormers
play the Lions at Newlands in February. Goliath-eque franchise budgets were
brought to size by passionate, ordinary folk. 



“There was a guy that came to one of the games on horseback. There were so many people at the game that he could not see, so he watched the game on his horse to get a view,” Smit says.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">You can only get that at Gold Cup games. It’s something magically unique. These people play for free, they play for the community and they play for each other. </blockquote>



“The games are well-supported because the communities have a
vested interest in the game – their husbands, uncles, brothers, friends,
cousins, employees or employers are participating in them. Everyone comes.”



The Gold Cup portfolio landed on Smit’s desk by chance. One
might say there was some alchemy involved. Ferriera’s untimely death, last
year, meant Smit was redeployed from shareholding company Richmark Holdings to
hold the SSG fort.



When he got to Ferreira’s seat, he saw the founder’s plans
for the partnership with SA Rugby were complete. The baby was in the right
hands. Smit wasted precious little time and stamped the deal. 



In a time of austerity, load-shedding and budget cuts, Smit
saw the forest for the trees. 



“I can’t take credit for that because it was the brainchild
of our previous CEO,” he says. 



“I am delighted that I am a part of this and that things
have worked out in such a way that made it possible. This was pioneered by
Jorge Ferreira and supported by two other companies (Blu Approved and M4Jam)
who made it possible. 



“The unique positioning, the timing of my transition into SSG, I don’t think there would have been anyone else who understood what the Gold Cup means to this country and the communities that hold it dear. 



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“It’s hard to quantify that commercially because it is more
of an emotive vibe. These communities have passionate people who stick with the
game after school. They are the backbone because they are not playing for
money.”



Indeed, if it isn’t a man atop his steed looking for a
glimpse of the action, it’s a “tannie” (older woman) selling boerewors rolls on
the grass bank. It’s kids running freely along the touchline, collecting balls
that have been kicked too long and returning them to their hometown heroes. 



It’s a second and third chance at the game for players who’ve been hooved by professional rugby’s cut-throat contracting system – such as MB Lusaseni, College Rovers captain and former Lions lock. It’s a combination of all these factors that make a mineworker spend his or her free time in the hot sun, absorbing the Gold Cup.



-Sibusiso Mjikeliso

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John Smit leaves everything on the field

Brought to you by Hugo Boss



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HUGO BOSS and Porsche have partnered to bring an action-packed racing experience to the streets of the world’s major cities through Formula E. 







Formula E is known
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in the motorsport arena to Formula E, as well as the dynamic style the fashion
brand is renowned for.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><a href="https://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/trackclk/N4022.3065143FORBESAFRICA/B22341404.245922753;dc_trk_aid=442353181;dc_trk_cid=115471848;dc_lat=;dc_rdid=;tag_for_child_directed_treatment=;tfua=" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/HB_Formula_E_01_CMYK-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-40367" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/HB_Formula_E_01_CMYK-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/HB_Formula_E_01_CMYK-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/HB_Formula_E_01_CMYK-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/HB_Formula_E_01_CMYK-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/HB_Formula_E_01_CMYK.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption> Alejandro Agag (Formula E CEO) and Mark Langer (HUGO BOSS CEO)</figcaption></figure>



Mark
Langer HUGO BOSS, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) says that though they have been
working successfully with motorsports over the years, he is exceptionally
pleased that as a fashion brand they are taking the cooperation to new heights.




“As a fashion brand, we are always looking at innovative approaches to design and sustainability. When we first encountered Formula E, we immediately saw its potential and we are pleased to be the first apparel partner to support this exciting new motorsport series,” he says. 



The fashion group is also the official outfitter to the entire Porsche motorsports team worldwide. 



The
fascination with perfect design and innovation, along with the Porshe and Hugo
Boss shared passion for racing, inspired Hugo Boss to produce the Porsche x
Boss capsule collection.



Its
standout features include premium leather and wool materials presented in the
Porsche and HUGO BOSS colors of silver, black and red. 



<figure class="wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Porsche x BOSS: introducing a new collaboration | BOSS" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fx-BDDA-FOM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div><figcaption> Porsche x BOSS: introducing a new collaboration | BOSS </figcaption></figure>



Since
March, a range of menswear styles from the debut capsule collection is
available online and at selected&nbsp;BOSS stores.&nbsp;In South Africa the
first pieces of the capsule will come as a part of the FW 19 collection.



Alejandro
Agag, Founder and CEO of Formula E says he is confident that the racers will put
their best foot forward on the racecourse. 



“This new partnership will see the team on the ground at each race dressed with a winning mindset and ready to deliver a spectacular event in cities across the world. As the first Official Apparel Partner of the series, we look forward to seeing the dynamic style and innovation on show that BOSS is renowned for,” says Agag.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><a href="https://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/trackclk/N4022.3065143FORBESAFRICA/B22341404.245922753;dc_trk_aid=442353181;dc_trk_cid=115471848;dc_lat=;dc_rdid=;tag_for_child_directed_treatment=;tfua=" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SR19_HugoBoss_Porsche_04_sRGB-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-40376" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SR19_HugoBoss_Porsche_04_sRGB-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SR19_HugoBoss_Porsche_04_sRGB-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SR19_HugoBoss_Porsche_04_sRGB-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SR19_HugoBoss_Porsche_04_sRGB-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/SR19_HugoBoss_Porsche_04_sRGB.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a><figcaption> Hugo Boss x Porsche&nbsp;&nbsp; </figcaption></figure>



Oliver Blume CEO of Porsche AG says Formula E is an exceptionally attractive racing series for motorsport vehicles to develop. 



&#8220;It offers us the perfect environment to strategically evolve our vehicles in terms of efficiency and sustainability. We&#8217;re looking forward to being on board in the 2019/2020 season. In this context, the renowned fashion group HUGO BOSS represents the perfect partner to outfit our team.&#8221;

SR19_HugoBoss_Porsche_04_sRGB

HUGO BOSS Partners With Porsche To Bring Action-Packed Racing Experience Through Formula E

A story of hopelessness, drugs and crime and an athlete who conquered land and sea, on crutches.  



Xolani Luvuno will enter this year’s prestigious New York City Marathon flying the flag of South Africa, but this is no ordinary athlete; he will complete the run on crutches.



Luvuno’s story is one of hopelessness, drugs and crime, but
then a life turned around in the most remarkable fashion as he became an
ambassador for good; taking on, and defeating, some of the most grueling athletic
pursuits on the planet. All with one leg.



Luvuno continues to defy the odds and, ahead of his journey
to New York, will also compete in a full IRONMAN African Championship event, in
April, which includes a 3.8km swim, a 90km bicycle ride and a 42.2km run.



That would present the mightiest of challenges for an
able-bodied athlete, but Luvuno must do all of that having had his right leg
amputated 11 years ago, after he developed cancer in the bone.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="916" height="604" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-40360" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno1.png 916w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno1-300x198.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno1-600x396.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno1-768x506.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 916px) 100vw, 916px" /><figcaption> Xolani Luvuno&#8217;s right leg was amputated 11 years ago, after he developed cancer in the bone. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure>



The 34-year-old has already proven his superhuman mental and
physical strength after completing the 89km Comrades Marathon on crutches last
year, and followed that up by completing a half IRONMAN event in East London in
South Africa earlier this year.



“I started running as a distraction from the substance abuse
that had gripped me earlier in my life; it focused my mind in other areas and
gave me a purpose,” Luvuno tells FORBES AFRICA. 



“The events are one part of it, but the training is what
helped me the most. In the townships, a lot of the drinking and alcohol abuse
happens over the weekend, and that is when I would go running. I would head out
with my crutches in the morning, and by the time I had finished, I would just
crash at home and sleep the rest of the day.



“It provided me with a new interest away from drugs and
alcohol and motivated me to do something with my life. I really needed a change
at the time, and running provided me with that.”



Luvuno’s teenage years were difficult. Falling into the grip
of substance abuse, he ended up living under a bridge in Pretoria and spent
five years in jail, having been convicted of housebreaking.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="617" height="611" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-40361" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno2.png 617w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno2-300x297.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno2-100x100.png 100w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno2-600x594.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno2-150x150.png 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno2-80x80.png 80w" sizes="(max-width: 617px) 100vw, 617px" /><figcaption>Xolani Luvuno and Hein Venter at Comrades finish. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure>



He would beg, steal and borrow to fuel his drug habit,
before his life was turned around by a chance meeting with Hein Venter, at a
traffic light in 2016, who took pity on Luvuno.



Venter gave him a job in his perfume factory and it was from
there that his running career was born.



“I could see his potential and I wanted him to meet new
people, away from his old life. Good people, normal people who he could use as
role models,” Venter says.



“We created a running club within the company and, literally
overnight, two-thirds of the employees took up running. It was amazing! Xolani
had his challenges, but he didn’t want to miss out and started to go out with
them too.” 



Venter arranged formal accommodation for Luvuno in Mamelodi
and had a prosthetic leg made.



He was later sponsored with a running blade, an attachment
for his leg that should have enabled him to compete with able-bodied athletes.
But, as a result of the long-distances involved in marathon running, he began
to develop sores and returned to running with crutches.



But his progress was incredible, and within 18 months, he
was lining up in one of the world’s most famous road races, the Comrades
Marathon, albeit five hours before the scheduled start of the race, completing
the event in 15 hours and 50 minutes.



“I always finish a race, no matter how long it takes me, I
will never quit,” Luvuno says. “I always want to push myself further, to break
down new barriers. After I completed the Comrades, I needed a new challenge.



“That is when I turned to IRONMAN, though cycling and
swimming were completely new to me. But after four or five months of intense
training, of really hard work, I was ready.



“Now I want to complete a full IRONMAN in April, that is my
next challenge, and after that, it is the New York [City] Marathon. My entry
for that has been accepted, it will be an amazing experience.” 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="609" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno5.png" alt="" class="wp-image-40362" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno5.png 820w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno5-300x223.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno5-600x446.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Luvuno5-768x570.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>Xolani Luvuno giving motivational talks. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure>



Luvuno’s story is an incredible tale of triumph over
adversity and how, even in the depths of despair, there is always the
opportunity to change the situation. He is now also a motivational speaker,
mostly sharing his story with school children, many of them handicapped
themselves.



“It is something I have a passion for, it allows me to give
something back,” he says. 



“There was a time when I was not society’s ally and I accept that, but that is in the past now and I can only look forward to the future. Maybe my story will help some youngsters gain perspective and take on the valuable lessons that I have learned.”



-Nick Said

Xolani-Luvuno

For Xolani Luvuno Its Mind Over Matter

The Welwitschias are committed to world cup glory, and to elevate other structures within Namibian rugby.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Namibia’s 20-year hunt&nbsp;&nbsp;
for a victory at the Rugby World Cup will continue in Japan later this
year, where Africa’s second best rugby nation face a daunting pool that
includes ‘big brother’ South Africa and defending champions New Zealand.



Namibia have shown a marked improvement in recent
tournaments and swept to qualification for the 2019 World Cup in emphatic style
by lifting the Rugby Africa Gold Cup, a competition that does not include the
Springboks.



Under Welsh coach Phil Davies, who will be leading the team for the second time at the global showpiece tournament, Namibian rugby has improved in leaps and bounds, even while the country’s union struggles with funds to keep the game afloat.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/sport/2019/03/05/super-rugby-in-sin-bin/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Super Rugby In Sin Bin (opens in a new tab)">Super Rugby In Sin Bin</a>



The Welwitschias, as the side are known, have lost all 19
previous games at the World Cup since their first qualification in 1999, but in
the last tournament in England scored their most points (70) and conceded their
fewest (174) in a pool that also included eventual winners New Zealand.



“We are positive we can continue to make improvements at the
World Cup and get that first win,” Corrie Mensah, president of the Namibia
Rugby Union, told FORBES AFRICA in an exclusive interview from Windhoek.



“Together with the head coach [Davies], we have mapped out a
plan for the build-up to the tournament and already have most of our players
together in camp.



“We have a tough program, the guys know they have to work hard to be part of our World Cup plans, but the preparation is there, the structures are in place and we are looking forward to a big year for Namibian rugby.”



The side open their World Cup campaign against Italy, in
Higashiōsaka on September 22, before a clash with the Springboks in Toyota, six
days later and another encounter against the All Blacks in Tokyo on October 6.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/driving-ambition/2019/03/25/bryan-habana-swaps-sweatpants-for-suits/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Bryan Habana Swaps Sweatpants For Suits (opens in a new tab)">Bryan Habana Swaps Sweatpants For Suits</a>



But the game the team will, realistically, be targeting for
their first victory is the match-up with fellow minnows Canada, in their final
pool match in Kamaishi a week later.



“Our main objective is to get that first World Cup win,”
Mensah says. “That would be a big moment for Namibian rugby and another sign
that we are on an upward curve. I think then we could call our tournament a
success.



“The second objective is to try and be competitive against
the All Blacks, Springboks and Italy. If we can do that, with a fraction of the
resources of those sides, then we can say we are punching above our weight.”



Namibia will compete in the 2019 World Rugby Nations Cup in
Uruguay in June along with the hosts, Romania and Russia, which will give them
three matches against fellow second-tier nations.



They then defend their title in the African Gold Cup, before
playing a couple of World Cup warm-up games that have yet to be confirmed.



The team will also play in South Africa’s domestic
SuperSport Rugby Challenge, a tournament that has proven vital in giving their
players quality, competitive matches that they would, simply, not get at home.



But while the team continues to show improvement on the
pitch, Mensah admits that it has been a hard slog off it to keep Namibian
rugby’s development goals in place.



“The biggest challenge we face is a financial one and the allocation of grants from World Rugby should be used in the right areas,” Mensah says.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“High performance grants should go to high performance protocols, development funds likewise. Making sure we do that is a major commitment we have made.”<cite> Corrie Mensah </cite></blockquote>



Mensah has also committed to improving other structures
within Namibian rugby, away from the senior men’s team.



“We have had major difficulties, with the economic slump in
the country, in terms of attracting sponsorship, which has had a major impact
on our league structures.



“Women’s rugby is non-existent in Namibia, but it is part of
our strategic plan to get it off the ground. 



The place to start is with regional teams, which we are
seeking to do this year, and then, hopefully, in future that filters down to
club sides.”



Mensah is also hoping to improve Namibia’s Sevens
structures, with that version of the game growing in popularity around the
world.



“With Sevens … it is about creating a whole new culture
around it because it is not something that is traditional to Namibian rugby. 



“It is part of our three and five-year strategic plans, but
again the funding for that kind of development is a challenge. We need to get
players into an academy structure and work with them constantly, but that all
costs a lot of money.”



In many ways, Namibia, with a population of 2.6-million is
already punching above their weight just to be at the World Cup, especially
with their fiscal challenges.



But how far they can go in terms of developing rugby in the country is an exciting prospect, and a good showing in Japan will confirm that they are a nation on the rise.



-Nick Said

gettyimages-989670358-594×594

Namibia To Kick It Up A Notch

At the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, I
became the first African and black woman to compete in the daring sport of
Skeleton. 



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Skeleton, in which athletes hurl themselves on a sled, head first, down a frozen ice track at 80 miles per hour, is considered by some to be the most terrifying Winter Olympics sport. I never imagined I would find myself hurtling down an icy hill on a metal, carbon fiber tray of sorts with no brakes, safety belt or steering mechanism. 



But when I discovered the sport about 100 days before the Olympics, I was motivated to take it up in hopes to inspire others, break barriers and shift the narrative around Africa on the world’s biggest stage. I ultimately changed the course of Olympic history and learned about the power of having a vision and pushing the limits to break into unknown spaces. 



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Bongi Msomi Is No Longer On The Sidelines (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2019/03/27/no-longer-on-the-sidelines/" target="_blank">Bongi Msomi Is No Longer On The Sidelines</a>



At the beginning of my journey, I asked myself two very
simple questions. ‘Why Not Me? And Why Not Now?’ I knew that someone had to
make history as the first African woman to compete in the sport of Skeleton at
the Winter Olympics and I didn’t see any reason why it couldn’t be me and it
couldn’t be right then. Despite coming from Nigeria, a place with no ice or
snow and having no prior knowledge of Skeleton, I had a vision to become the
first African woman to compete in Olympic Skeleton. 



We often hesitate to establish a vision for the things we want to do thinking that someone else will do it, while also waiting for a perfect time for it to be done. As best-selling author Mel Robbins notes in The 5 Second Rule, “If you have an instinct to act on a goal, you must physically move within five seconds or your brain will kill it.” Through my unconventional path, I learned how to keep my vision alive by taking action instantly.



As I pushed to break barriers, I also learned the value of embracing chaos and how to keep moving forward. In the sport of Skeleton, you’re on the edge of danger and control at any given time. This taught me to expect and appreciate the chaos that comes with life. 



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/sport/2018/10/04/unequal-pay-for-equal-play/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Unequal Pay for Equal Play (opens in a new tab)">Unequal Pay for Equal Play</a>



Before every run, I take down the track, I have a game plan. But when navigating down massive twists and turns going at speeds faster than cars travel on the freeway, things don’t always go as planned. 



Through my experiences on the Skeleton track, I’ve learned to embrace life’s chaotic, unplanned moments and adapt as needed along the way. In the same way, as I was beginning the sport, I would painfully bump into the walls on my way down the track. These are called “hits”. Hits slow you down and are to be avoided as much as possible. But in Skeleton, just as in life, hits are inevitable. 



On this journey, I learned to take the hits, no matter how big or small and keep pushing forward. 



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2019/03/11/the-businesses-of-the-future-20-new-wealth-creators-on-the-african-continent/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Businesses Of The Future: 20 New Wealth Creators On The African Continent (opens in a new tab)">Businesses Of The Future: 20 New Wealth Creators On The African Continent</a>



Finally, in Skeleton, flying down the track at crazy speeds, you have to make decisions in split seconds and the natural reaction is to panic. However, panicking is counterproductive as it causes the body to tense up and actually slows the sled down. Remaining cool, calm and collected is the best thing a Skeleton athlete can do. 



With more time in the sport, I ultimately learned to trust my instincts, relax and enjoy the ride. Perhaps this is the most important lesson of all as this has become my personal ethos for achieving success in life. 



By taking action instantly, embracing chaos and relentlessly
pushing forward and relaxing and trusting our instincts, we can all apply these
winning strategies for high performance in business and life. Who knew you
could learn so much from the most terrifying Winter Olympics sport?

SKELETON-OLY-2018-PYEONGCHANG

Simidele Adeagbo: What I Learned  From The Most Terrifying Winter Olympics Sport

The 83rd Masters will go down as one of the most memorable events in modern golf history.



Many fans point to Jack Nicklaus’ unexpected run to a sixth green jacket in 1986 at 46 years old as the ultimate Augusta moment, but Tiger Woods, who has been chasing Nicklaus’ legacy his entire career, might have just topped the Golden Bear.



Woods, decked in his trademark red, won the Masters by one stroke Sunday, holding off a stacked leaderboard of seasoned, elite golfers. It was a moment that many sports fans thought would never happen after a series of back surgeries pushed Woods to the brink of retirement.



Americans love to see their brightest stars fall, and few have fallen from a higher point than Woods, who was the most marketable athlete on the planet for a decade-plus. But the one thing Americans seem to love even more is the redemption story. Sports fans had waited 11 years for Woods to take another step toward Nicklaus&#8217; hallowed record of 18 major titles.



Woods’ Tour Championship win last year was an indicator of what was to come, and he’s once again a marketing force. Woods and Phil Mickelson had a $9 million winner-take-all pay-per-view event in November, and Woods signed a multiyear content deal last fall with Discovery’s new over-the-top streaming service, GolfTV. He will do weekly golf instructional videos and is set to do a series of showdown-type events in Asia as part of the Discovery partnership.



Here are some of the numbers behind Woods and his history at Augusta.



4: Back surgeries for Woods.



5: Wins at Augusta for Woods, but the most recent was 14 years ago. It is the longest gap between Masters wins ever.



11: It has been just shy of 11 years since Woods won his last major tournament (2008 U.S. Open).



11: Number of times Woods has won the Player of the Year award.



12: Woods’ current rank in the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.owgr.com/ranking" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">World Golf Ranking</a>.



16: Woods’ rank last year among&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2018/06/05/mayweather-messi-lead-the-worlds-highest-paid-athletes-2018/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the world&#8217;s highest-paid athletes</a>. He earned $43.3 million.



20: Woods has made the cut in all 20 of his Masters appearances.



21: Woods was the youngest Masters champion ever when he won in 1997 at 21 years old by a record 12 strokes.



35: Number of players who had won a major title&nbsp;<a href="http://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/26522684/tiger-masters-victory-even-never-saw-coming" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">since Woods’ last Masters win</a>&nbsp;in 2005. That span covered 55 tournaments.



43: Woods is the second-oldest Masters champion, with only Nicklaus having been older when he put on the green jacket.



81: Career PGA Tour wins for Woods, one shy of Sam Snead’s record.



281: Consecutive weeks Woods was ranked No. 1 in the world between 2005 and 2010.



$1.19 million: Payout for a bettor who put down $85,000 at 14/1 odds at William Hill&#8217;s Las Vegas sportsbook on Woods to win. “It’s great to see Tiger back.&nbsp;It’s a painful day for William Hill—our biggest golf loss ever—but a great day for golf,” says Nick Bogdanovich, William Hill U.S.&#8217;s director of trading.



$2.07 million: Woods’ prize money for the 2019 Masters win.



$20 million: Value of his yacht Privacy.



$20 million: Estimated value of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.golfdigest.com/story/golden-retirements-pga-tour-pros-get-a-gift-that-keeps-giving" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Woods’ PGA Tour pension plan</a>.



$800 million:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2018/12/18/tiger-woods-net-worth-800-million-in-2018/#7875226c348e" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Estimated net worth</a>&nbsp;for Woods.



$1.5 billion: Cumulative career earnings for Woods, including prize money, endorsements, appearance fees and golf course design fees.



-Kurt Badenhausen;Forbes Staff

GettyImages-1142687460

Masters Champion Tiger Woods: By The Numbers

The NBA may be a star-driven league, but its financial structure ensures that building a roster requires more than identifying talent. It&#8217;s not just about finding the right player; it&#8217;s about finding the right player at the right price.



With team values&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2019/02/06/nba-team-values-2019-knicks-on-top-at-4-billion/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">continuing to climb</a>, owners can afford to pay an underachieving player. The real pain is in the opportunity cost: What could you have gotten for that money instead? How else could you have beefed up your roster?



It&#8217;s no surprise, then, that teams continue to search for new inefficiencies and measures of value, in a statistical revolution.



As with any bet, though, occasionally you gamble and lose.



Here are some of this season&#8217;s big losses.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">How We Determined Who&#8217;s &#8216;Overpaid&#8217;</h4>



The inventor of the methodology we&#8217;re using here is David Berri, a sports economist at Southern Utah University and a former&nbsp;Forbescontributor. The number-crunching involves a few thorny decisions, but the premise is beautifully straightforward.



Figure out what a player&nbsp;should&nbsp;be making. Compare that against what he is&nbsp;actually&nbsp;making. The difference between the numbers is the amount by which he&#8217;s overpaid (or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettknight/2019/04/12/nba-underpaid-harden-giannis/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">underpaid</a>). Rinse and repeat.



Berri&#8217;s big contribution is the method he devised to produce the first estimate—what a player should be making. We start with the fact that, under the league&#8217;s collective bargaining agreement, players as a group are guaranteed&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q15" target="_blank">roughly 50%</a>&nbsp;of basketball-related income. Because we don&#8217;t yet know the BRI figure for the 2018-19 season, we&#8217;ll use last season&#8217;s: BRI was $7.147 billion, and the players&#8217; share was $3.645 billion, according to&nbsp;Larry Coon&#8217;s NBA Salary Cap FAQ.



If we assume that teams are paying players to win, we can divide the players&#8217; income by the total number of regular-season games (1,230) to produce an estimate of the value of a win: $2.963 million. (Yes, for the purposes of this analysis, we&#8217;re ignoring the fact that teams sometimes may not want to win or may be paying players for a reason other than winning, like boosting ticket sales. We&#8217;re also ignoring playoff games in computing the value of a win because players are paid out of their salaries solely during the regular season.)



From there, if we multiply our win value by the number of wins a player produces, we arrive at that player&#8217;s value for the season—his &#8220;expected&#8221; salary.



We have many win estimates to choose from in this player analysis, but all of them have the same basic goal: boil down a number of statistics (like points, rebounds and turnovers) into one number to measure how many wins a player contributed to his team. All of these metrics have their strengths and weaknesses, so in this analysis, we will be taking the average of three win estimates to try to minimize the blindspots of any one of them. Our three inputs: Wins Produced, a metric created by Berri and listed at&nbsp;BoxScoreGeeks.com; a wins estimate based on the metric Value Over Replacement Player, which&nbsp;is calculated by Basketball-Reference.com&nbsp;and is itself based on the metric Box Plus/Minus; and Win Shares, another metric&nbsp;calculated by Basketball-Reference.



Of course, these metrics are limited by the inputs they&#8217;re using; if the metric doesn&#8217;t account for something that&#8217;s inherently hard to quantify—for instance, a player&#8217;s ability to man up on defense—then that metric won&#8217;t fully capture a player&#8217;s value. But while it&#8217;s easy to point out that problem, it&#8217;s not so easy to solve it. We&#8217;re left with an imperfect measure.



Because these metrics are assessing a player&#8217;s contributions relative to a theoretical replacement-level player, they can be negative—that would suggest the player is actually worse than a replacement the team could pluck out of, say, the G League. In our analysis, though, a negative win estimate would make the player&#8217;s expected salary a negative number, suggesting the player was actually paying the team to play. While many fans might take that deal, we&#8217;ve substituted in zeroes whenever a metric turns negative so the lowest an expected salary can go is $0.



For player salaries, we are using data from&nbsp;Spotrac. Importantly, we are using the player&#8217;s cap figure—which is what the team is actually paying him—rather than his base salary. In the vast majority of cases, those numbers are the same, but when they differ, the cap figure will provide a more accurate measure of value.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Who We Considered For The &#8216;Honor&#8217;</h4>



We could perform this analysis on all 530 players who appeared in an NBA game this season, but because players accumulate wins across games, our overpaid list would be dominated by players who barely saw the court, many of them because of injury. To avoid that, we added in minimum thresholds of 41 games and 500 minutes played. Those are fairly arbitrary numbers, but they do measure a large enough portion of the season that a player&#8217;s real value should start to come through.



We also excluded players whose contracts are governed by the rookie salary scale. That left us with 257 players to analyze.



We compiled the data. We crunched the numbers. These are the 10 players who appeared to be the most overpaid.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/1140284280/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Chris Paul of the Houston Rockets in a game against the Los Angeles Clippers on April 3."/><figcaption>Chris Paul of the Houston Rockets in a game against the Los Angeles Clippers on April 3.YONG TECK LIM/GETTY IMAGES</figcaption></figure>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">10. Chris Paul</h4>



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">Point guard, Houston Rockets</h5>



<ul><li>Wins Estimate Average: 7.4 (6.5 VORP wins, 6.6 Win Shares, 9.1 Wins Produced)</li><li>Expected Salary: $21,906,447</li><li>Cap Figure: $35,654,150</li><li>Difference: $13,747,703</li></ul>



Paul is having a reasonably productive season—with 9.1 Wins Produced, he is tied for 45th in the league despite playing only 58 games—but his Win Shares and VORP wins figures are easily career lows and are noticeably down from the 10.2 and 11.6 he posted last year, when he also played 58 games. If he could stay healthy, this contract wouldn&#8217;t look so bad—he still has two years to go, plus a player option for 2021-22 at $44,211,146—but he&#8217;s missed 69 games across the last three seasons. Can the Rockets really count on having him for a full season?



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/1133217981/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Wesley Matthews of the Indiana Pacers in a game against the Denver Nuggets on March 24."/><figcaption>Wesley Matthews of the Indiana Pacers in a game against the Denver Nuggets on March 24.MICHAEL HICKEY/GETTY IMAGES</figcaption></figure>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">9. Wesley Matthews</h4>



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">Shooting guard, Indiana Pacers</h5>



<ul><li>Wins Estimate Average: 1.6 (0.8, 2.7, 1.4)</li><li>Expected Salary: $4,849,443</li><li>Cap Figure: $19,135,259</li><li>Difference: $14,285,816</li></ul>



Matthews&#8217; current contract might not look so bad—he counts $512,746 against the Pacers&#8217; cap—but that&#8217;s only because he was waived by the Knicks in February. For this analysis, we combined his two cap figures, as well as his on-court production across his three stops this season.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/1142095040/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Kent Bazemore of the Atlanta Hawks in a game against the New Orleans Pelicans on March 26."/><figcaption>Kent Bazemore of the Atlanta Hawks in a game against the New Orleans Pelicans on March 26.JONATHAN BACHMAN/GETTY IMAGES</figcaption></figure>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">8. Kent Bazemore</h4>



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">Shooting guard, Atlanta Hawks</h5>



<ul><li>Wins Estimate Average: 0.5 (0, 0.7, 0.9)</li><li>Expected Salary: $1,580,267</li><li>Cap Figure: $18,089,887</li><li>Difference: $16,509,620</li></ul>



Bazemore hasn&#8217;t come close to living up to a deal he signed in 2016—the year the salary cap spiked and the value of contracts surged. Bazemore still has a player option for next season; count on him taking the $19,269,662.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/1128531243/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Tim Hardaway Jr. of the Mavericks in a game against the Los Angeles Clippers in February."/><figcaption>Tim Hardaway Jr. of the Dallas Mavericks in a game against the Los Angeles Clippers on February 25.BRIAN ROTHMULLER/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES</figcaption></figure>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">7. Tim Hardaway Jr.</h4>



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">Shooting guard, Dallas Mavericks</h5>



<ul><li>Wins Estimate Average: 0.7 (0, 1.8, 0.3)</li><li>Expected Salary: $2,074,100</li><li>Cap Figure: $19,200,127</li><li>Difference: $17,126,027</li></ul>



The Mavericks took on Hardaway&#8217;s pricey contract as a cost of acquiring Kristaps Porzingis. On top of his $17,325,000 base salary, he earned $1,875,127 when the Knicks dealt him as a result of a trade kicker.



Hardaway averaged a career-high 18.1 points this season, but he didn&#8217;t get there particularly efficiently, shooting .393 from the field and .340 from 3. With another year on the deal and a player option for 2020-21, he won&#8217;t be coming off Dallas&#8217; books as soon as the team might like.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/1059790152/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Allen Crabbe of the Brooklyn Nets in a game against the Denver Nuggets on November 9."/><figcaption>Allen Crabbe of the Brooklyn Nets in a game against the Denver Nuggets on November 9.MATTHEW STOCKMAN/GETTY IMAGES</figcaption></figure>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">6. Allen Crabbe</h4>



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">Shooting guard, Brooklyn Nets</h5>



<ul><li>Wins Estimate Average: 0.3 (0, 0.8, 0.1)</li><li>Expected Salary: $888,900</li><li>Cap Figure: $18,500,000</li><li>Difference: $17,611,100</li></ul>



Crabbe&#8217;s contract is another from the fateful summer of 2016. He appeared in just 43 games this season because of injuries and had middling numbers when he did play, shooting an abominable .342 on 2-pointers. Coming off arthroscopic knee surgery, he seems likely to pick up his $18,500,000 option for next season.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5cafdf814bbe6f706aa3379c/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Otto Porter Jr. of the Chicago Bulls in a game against the Memphis Grizzlies on February 27."/><figcaption>Otto Porter Jr. of the Chicago Bulls in a game against the Memphis Grizzlies on February 27.BRANDON DILL/ASSOCIATED PRESS</figcaption></figure>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">5. Otto Porter Jr.</h4>



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">Small forward, Chicago Bulls</h5>



<ul><li>Wins Estimate Average: 2.8 (2.7, 3.2, 2.5)</li><li>Expected Salary: $8,296,400</li><li>Cap Figure: $26,011,913</li><li>Difference: $17,715,513</li></ul>



Porter, whom the Bulls acquired from the Wizards in February, is a good player, shooting .429 on 4.3 3-point attempts a game over the last three seasons. But he is more of a complementary piece, not the No. 1 option his contract would suggest. With a player option for 2020-21, the Bulls may be paying him $55,739,813 over the next two years. (Then again, who else are they going to spend their money on?)



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/1135593739/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Gordon Hayward of the Boston Celtics in a game against the Washington Wizards on March 1."/><figcaption>Gordon Hayward of the Boston Celtics in a game against the Washington Wizards on March 1.MADDIE MEYER/GETTY IMAGES</figcaption></figure>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">4. Gordon Hayward</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Small forward, Boston Celtics</h4>



<ul><li>Wins Estimate Average: 4.4 (3.2, 4.9, 5.1)</li><li>Expected Salary: $13,076,707</li><li>Cap Figure: $31,214,295</li><li>Difference: $18,137,588</li></ul>



Hayward is still scraping off the rust after returning this season from the leg injury he suffered in the 2017 season opener. If he can get back to the form he showed with the Jazz in 2016-17, this contract won&#8217;t be a problem. That season, he was worth 10.8 VORP wins, 10.4 Win Shares and 12.5 Wins Produced, for an average of 11.2. That translates to an expected salary of more than $33 million (using this season&#8217;s win value figure).



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/1137185898/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Jabari Parker of the Washington Wizards falling in a game against the Bulls on March 20."/><figcaption>Jabari Parker of the Washington Wizards falling in a game against the Chicago Bulls on March 20.JONATHAN DANIEL/GETTY IMAGES</figcaption></figure>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">3. Jabari Parker</h4>



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">Power forward, Washington Wizards</h5>



<ul><li>Wins Estimate Average: 0.5 (0, 1.4, 0.2)</li><li>Expected Salary: $1,580,267</li><li>Cap Figure: $20,000,000</li><li>Difference: $18,419,733</li></ul>



Parker ended up on the Wizards in the big-money swap for Otto Porter Jr. Parker, though, performed little better than a replacement-level player this season. In a particularly bad sign, his Defensive Win Shares figure exceeded his Offensive Win Shares figure with both of his 2018-19 teams—and this is not a player known for lock-down defense. The Wizards hold a club option for next season that they will almost certainly decline.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/1135211284/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Harrison Barnes of the Sacramento Kings in a game against the Wizards on March 11."/><figcaption>Harrison Barnes of the Sacramento Kings in a game against the Washington Wizards on March 11.ROB CARR/GETTY IMAGES</figcaption></figure>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">2. Harrison Barnes</h4>



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">Small forward, Sacramento Kings</h5>



<ul><li>Wins Estimate Average: 1.2 (0, 3.6, 0)</li><li>Expected Salary: $3,555,600</li><li>Cap Figure: $24,793,702</li><li>Difference: $21,238,102</li></ul>



Barnes is the fifth player on this list to have changed teams this season, joining the Kings from the Mavericks in a February trade that earned him a $686,444 kicker. His shooting percentages perked up after the move, and his Win Shares Per 48 Minutes figure rose to .084, from .059. But that won&#8217;t be enough to justify the $25,102,513 salary Sacramento will have to pay him next season if he exercises his player option. He would probably offer more value at power forward, but the Kings have a big-man logjam.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/2ae33c85441c46a09be85b171cd87703/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Andrew Wiggins looking to get past Portland Trail Blazers forward Jake Layman in December."/><figcaption>Andrew Wiggins looking to get past Portland Trail Blazers forward Jake Layman on December 8.STEVE DYKES/ASSOCIATED PRESS</figcaption></figure>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">1. Andrew Wiggins</h4>



<h5 class="wp-block-heading">Small forward, Minnesota Timberwolves</h5>



<ul><li>Wins Estimate Average: 0.2 (0, 0.6, 0)</li><li>Expected Salary: $592,600</li><li>Cap Figure: $25,467,250</li><li>Difference: $24,874,650</li></ul>



Wiggins essentially played at a replacement level this season; his $592,600 expected salary is about $1 million lower than the minimum a player of his experience could have been paid. In fact, his VORP figure was -0.6, suggesting he actually cost his team about 1.6 wins relative to a replacement player. The really bad news: This was just the first year in a five-year extension, with his salary rising all the way to $33,616,770 for 2022-23.



-Brett Knight; Forbes Staff

Minnesota Timberwolves v Memphis Grizzlies

NBA’s Most Overpaid Players 2019: Wiggins, Jabari And 8 Others Who Underperformed

The Proteas have a reputation of dropping the ball at the
final moment. The team hope to make important changes as they prepare for the
Cricket World Cup.



South Africa’s search for what is becoming their ‘Holy
Grail’ will continue in May when they contest the Cricket World Cup that is to
be played in England and Wales, providing another shot at a trophy that has
frustratingly eluded them in the past.



The Proteas have entered World Cup tournaments as heavy
favorites in the past, indisputably the best team on the planet at the time,
yet found unusual ways to be eliminated, leading to the tag of ‘chokers’ that
has haunted the team for two decades now.



In 1999, they got themselves into a winning position against Australia in their semi-final, yet gave up their final wicket to a crazy run-out needing just a single run for victory.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/sport/2018/10/04/unequal-pay-for-equal-play/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Unequal Pay for Equal Play (opens in a new tab)">Unequal Pay for Equal Play</a>



Four years later, on home soil, they misread the
Duckworth-Lewis par score after rain in a pool match against Sri Lanka and did
not realize they needed one more run than they had.



In 2007, they folded in the West Indies when too many of
their top players could not find form, while four years ago, they gave up a
commanding position to lose a semifinal to New Zealand, made all the more
galling as South African-born Grant Elliott proved the match-winner for the
Kiwis.



The failures of the side have almost become part of cricket
folklore, with opposing fans delighting in throwing the choker tag at South
Africa at every opportunity.



So what chance of a change in 2019? It is the first time in perhaps 27 years that South Africa do not go in as one of the genuine pre-tournament favorites, with England and India many people’s top tips, and with good reason as both have been outstanding in 50-over cricket of late.



An evolving South Africa could have as many as 10 players in
their 15-man squad who have never been to the World Cup before, and while that
lack of experience could be a hindrance, it could also be a help in that they
will not carry the ‘baggage’ of past failure. 



Captain Faf du Plessis will go to his third tournament and
he knows what to expect in terms of media and fan pressure over past failures
on his players.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/driving-ambition/2019/03/25/bryan-habana-swaps-sweatpants-for-suits/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Bryan Habana Swaps Sweatpants For Suits (opens in a new tab)">Bryan Habana Swaps Sweatpants For Suits</a>



“As soon as you get to the tournament, you get to hear about
it,” Du Plessis tells FORBES AFRICA. 



“When you chat to the media that is all people want to talk
about, when you play against opposition, they will bring it up.



“For me now, it is about making players aware of it and
giving them ways to deal with it, to mentally preparing for it, so that when we
do get to England, it is not a surprise.”



Du Plessis believes that managing key moments in games
better than they have in the past is the key to success, as well as making sure
the players stick to their game-plans and don’t try to be ‘supermen’.



“For the last year or so we have been dealing with different
aspects of that. Hopefully, when we get there, we will manage those situations
better than we have previously.



“We have played some really good cricket at tournaments in
the past, but we have always had little moments in the game where pressure got
the better of us. 



“How do you fix that? How do you deal with it? How do you
cope in those moments?



“I hope that by talking to players, by giving them a ‘how’
of dealing with those moments, they will handle them better than we have in the
past.”



The make-up of the South African side has been the subject
of much debate, but the picture is clear for Du Plessis –&nbsp; if everybody is fit. Three fast-bowlers, a
spinner and seven batsmen, which includes an all-rounder, is the preferred
make-up, with the swinging ball likely to dominate the bat.



When all are available, the South African side generally
picks itself, but the return of fast bowler Lungi Ngidi from injury is key. 



“If you have a very good bowling attack that can get
wickets, then you put yourself there or thereabouts,” Du Plessis says. 



“India have got a really good bowling attack at the moment
and are bowling teams out constantly. 



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/sport/2019/03/05/super-rugby-in-sin-bin/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Super Rugby In Sin Bin (opens in a new tab)">Super Rugby In Sin Bin</a>



“If we have a full-strength team, we also have a very good bowling attack. We have missed Lungi recently. I feel that if you have Lungi, Dale [Steyn] and KG [Kagiso Rabada] together, it makes our bowling attack a lot stronger. 



“They are all wicket-takers and that is what winning in
white ball cricket is about.”



With Andile Phehlukwayo having moved ahead in the race for
the all-rounder spot and JP Duminy likely to return from injury in time for the
tournament, giving a -part-time spin option, South Africa’s&nbsp; first choice side looks strong.



But do Quinton de Kock, Hashim Amla, Reeza Hendricks, Du
Plessis, Duminy, David Miller, Phehlukwayo, Rabada, Steyn, Ngidi and Imran
Tahir have the look of world champions? Time will tell. 



The Proteas open their campaign against England at The Oval on May 30, with all 10 teams playing each in a round-robin format. The top four sides then advance to the semi-finals, with the decider to be played on July 14.



&#8211;Nick Said

cricket

Can The ‘Chokers’ Reclaim Glory

The South African netball team led by Bongi Msomi is working
towards becoming one of the world’s best.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



National team captain Bongi Msomi has become a great
ambassador for South African netball as she continues to make waves ahead of
the World Cup in England later this year, becoming a role model in a sport that
has wide participation among women in the country.



Msomi took up netball late, and quite by chance, but has
risen to become a top international player, having turned her passion for the
sport into a career.



She has played professionally in England and Australia, and
has been part of the senior national team set-up since 2011, becoming a key cog
in their rise to number five in the world rankings. 



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2019/01/09/thembi-kgatlanas-long-and-hard-road-to-houghston/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Thembi Kgatlana’s Long And Hard Road to Houghston (opens in a new tab)">Thembi Kgatlana’s Long And Hard Road to Houghston</a>



It has been a meteoric rise and an unexpected one at that, but Msomi is proud of her achievements, and feels there is more to come.



“I only started playing netball in Grade 11 when I was 16 years
old and it all happened by accident,” Msomi tells FORBES WOMAN AFRICA from her
base in England, where she currently plays for Wasps.



“I was at Luthayi High School [in Hammarsdale,
KwaZulu-Natal] and went to watch one of the training sessions as some of the
girls from my township played in the team. I had no interest in netball at all
though.



“But that day, there were only 13 players at training and the coach wanted to play a match, which you need 14 players for [seven per side]. So they asked if I would fill in and that is where it started for me, I was hooked. It was all by accident really!



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2018/12/27/from-zero-to-hero-the-queen-of-the-800-meters-caster-semenya/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="‘From Zero to Hero’: The Queen Of The 800 meters Caster Semenya (opens in a new tab)">‘From Zero to Hero’: The Queen Of The 800 meters Caster Semenya</a>



“I owe a lot to my school coach [Sthembiso Mncwabe] as he
put a lot of time into helping me with my skills. Because I started so late
there was a lot of work needed.”



Msomi quickly rose to prominence with her athletic ability
and skill, and within a few years had made the South African Under-19 side, and
then the Under-21s, and her leadership qualities, meaning she captained the
latter side at the World Youth Championships in the Cook Islands in 2009.



It took her a little longer for senior team recognition
though, as she attended a number of camps without being selected, until she
made her bow at the 2011 World Cup in Singapore.



“I haven’t looked back since then,” Msomi says. “I have been a regular in the national team, was the vice-captain for a while and am now the captain, which is obviously a very proud moment for my family and I.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">It has been a long journey, an interesting one, but it has opened so many doors for me and for that, I will always be grateful.</blockquote>



Msomi is currently in her third season in England, having
turned out for Surrey Storm and now Wasps, winning championships with each, and
with a spell at Adelaide Thunderbirds in Australia as well.



“Playing professionally has been amazing, being able to turn
this passion into a paid job is just unbelievable,” she says. 



“There are now eight of us in the national team that are
playing professionally overseas and that certainly makes us a stronger team. 



“But it also shows me that we do have a long way to go in
South Africa, when you see how professional players train, eat and look after
themselves. That should be our goal and we are moving in that direction.” 



The Brutal Fruit Netball Premier League is a provincial
competition in South Africa that has been played since 2014, and is slowly
helping to improve the standard, according to Msomi.



“It exposes players to be seen and is an amazing set-up, but
it could still improve further in terms of being more competitive and preparing
players for the international stage.



“We know as a country, we can play netball, we have proven
that, but the step up to the level of the top teams in the world is huge. When
you see how top players train on and off the court, then you realize what it
takes to get to the very top.” 



Msomi will be a star player when South Africa compete at the
World Cup from July 12 to 21.



Australia head the world rankings, followed by New Zealand,
Jamaica and England, and Msomi says finishing in the top four positions at the
tournament should be the goal of the side. 



“Every country wants to win a medal and that would be
amazing, but my honest wish for us, looking at where we have come from, would
be to look at finishing in the top four first.



“We have shown the world in the recent quadrangular series
that we can push the top teams hard. We beat England and only lost to New
Zealand in extra-time when we really should have won.



“Once you make the semi-finals, anything can happen in professional sport. It all comes down to how the two teams perform on the day. After that, who knows, anything is possible,” Msomi says.



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Netball SA CEO Blanche De La Guerre has watched the
development of Msomi through the years and believes she is an outstanding
ambassador for the sport in the country.



“From a shy, quiet young player, she has absolutely
blossomed into this confident and opinionated player. It has been wonderful to
see!” De La Guerre tells FORBES WOMAN AFRICA.



“Bongi is such a good example of somebody who has succeeded
despite the odds being stacked against her. She never made excuses along the
way, and always put in the hard work necessary to get to the top.



“Through tough times, she could have blamed the fact that she
had started late in the game, that she had no takkies [sports shoes] or kit, no
gym to go to, but she never did that. She just made sure she worked harder than
everybody else.



“She is an example to every little girl out there that you
can make things happen for yourself if you put in the hard work. That you can
become a national captain and play overseas.”



De La Guerre has praised the leadership of Msomi and the
work that she does away from the court.



“She has excellent leadership qualities and delivers a powerful message. She also leads by example, which I think is one of her best qualities. She spends a lot of time doing development work when she is back in South Africa, inspiring young girls to take up the sport.”



-Nick Said

Category: Sport

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

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