KEVIN MCCALLUM: Brave Banyana have every right to say ‘told you so’

How did it take so long to get here? How many days, weeks, years and decades have women’s team sports spent fighting, wondering and begging for their day to come? How long has it taken for a day such as Wednesday to happen, when a country held its breath and two teams looked in the eyes of their countryfolk and said: “Told you so.”

It was a day to behold, a celebration in which a breath was not bated, courage not questioned, hope remained steadfast and luck ran true. It was a day of calm heads in the death, when the end was nigh and the result potentially dire, of skill, steady limbs and heads, when the heart threatened to become unwieldy and the pressure overwhelming

And, yet, on Wednesday, first through Banyana Banyana and then the Proteas, SA celebrated results that had seemed unlikely, even miraculous. SA media fell over themselves to celebrate it, as they should, some sneaking in a “told you so” between the lines.

If only they had told us so for the past two decades or more, or last week when they ran dozens of stories breaking down how the Springboks staggered to a win over Argentina compared to a handful of co-authored, bitty, agency-assisted ditties on how the world of SA sport needed to be turned upside down. The value of women’s sport is now more than just a whim. It is a reality, a fight for equality. 

Women have always been the poor cousin of SA sport. Hell, the poor cousin of world sport. It took until 2002 for the Comrades Marathon to offer equal prize money to men and women. Read that again. Men and women. Men has always come before women in sport. Look out for it when you read results. You will be astounded, or perhaps not, at how often it happens. It’s the value that is placed on women.

The Absa Cape Epic began offering equal prize money in 2014. Other races have followed rather than be shamed as they should. It took the Grand Slams until 2007 for all of them to grant the same prize money, with Wimbledon the last to do so. In 2022 the US women’s team finally won a legal action for parity with the men’s team, this despite them earning their association more than the guys. 

“In many ways, the USWNT’s [US women's national soccer team’s] lengthy — and at-times ugly pay dispute with their own federation became an issue of public interest, a microcosm of the barriers and prejudices that female athletes have had to fight against throughout history,” reported SportsPro, the sports business website.

“In other words, it became a campaign for female athletes everywhere. And the longer the legal battle dragged on, the clearer its implications became: if even one of the most high-profile, successful women’s sports teams of all time were being denied equal pay, then what chance does everybody else have?”

When Thembi Kgatlana scored that final goal, Danny Jordaan, seemingly the president for life at the SA Football Association (Safa), may have had a little trouser cough. Safa’s intransigence and utter inability to read the room saw them force the hand of women they thought they had control of.

The simple facts are that Jordaan didn’t want to pay Banyana more money. Safa does not have it. They have screamed through the 2010 legacy fund like it was pocket change. That is another story in itself.

And, so, Safa played bluff with Banyana as the US federation had done with their team, and on Wednesday, they lost, not only in the court of popular opinion, but in the Kgatlana goal that created history.

Why has it taken so long for us to get here? Why the lengthy pause before the realisation of just what SA women have to offer and the heights they could take us? Because of us. Because of men. Men like Jordaan. Men like you. Men like me.

We have all flicked and read past stories of women’s sport. I have covered my share for women’s hockey, but I know I could have done more, could have cared more, could have wanted more.

Wednesday was a wondrous day of an arrival far too late, when a tortured and confused land saw women lead them to a space of some small relief. It was a day when the Proteas and Banyana looked at us and said: “Told you so.”