'Volunteer culture holds back sport growth'

Business of Sport Summit founder, Bonnie Dintwa says successful sports industries cannot be built on volunteer labour alone Kabelo Boranabi Share Tweet Share Email sms Listen Local sports associations will continue to struggle to unlock the commercial potential of sport as long as they carry on with their reliance on volunteers to run organisations responsible for millions of pula, Business of Sport Summit founder, Bonni Dintwa has said. He made the remarks during the recent launch of the inaugural Business of Sport Summit in Gaborone, where organisers outlined plans to transform sport into a viable economic sector capable of attracting investment, creating jobs and contributing to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Speaking at the launch, Dintwa argued that the local sporting structures need to embrace professional administration if sport is to evolve into a sustainable industry capable of generating income and attracting serious corporate investments. Drawing from lessons shared by Cuban sports officials during a benchmarking exercise attended by Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) representatives several years ago, Dintwa said successful sports industries cannot be built on volunteer labour alone. "One of the things the Cubans said was that you can't volunteer sport and expect sport to work," he said. "You want to create a sports product that makes money, but the people running sport go to work until five o'clock and then spend maybe 30 minutes or an hour in the evening dealing with association matters.