Locked Down Spectator

A historic moment in sports history is expected to occur in the year of our lord 2024: the revenues for women's sports are expected to total and surge past the $1-billion mark for the first time ever. SuperSport  reports that an explosion in popularity will result in this landmark as per financial powerhouse Deloitte. Women's football is expected to generate a record $555-million out of the projected $1.28-billion, hot on the heels of the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup that has co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand. There is progress to be made however, with comfortably more than 50% of the current share coming out of North America. This is despite the prodigious growth of women's football across the Atlantic Ocean in Europe. Insights lead for Deloitte's Sports Business Group said Jennifer Haskell said: "Over the last few years we have seen the exception growth in women's sports across the globe, driving a significant uplift in its commercial value, which in

Alcoholism is intrinsic in South African football culture. This is the assertion of former Platinum Stars player Tintswalo Shabalala in the wake of the allegations that Kaizer Chiefs and Bafana Bafana legend Itumeleng Khune arrived drunk to practice , subsequently being suspended. Speaking to Kick Off , Tshabalala alleged that this sort of behaviour is happening at all the clubs across the land, adding: "The current players don't take their jobs seriously, and that's why it's worse. The problem is that, as humans, we don't handle frustrations in the same way. Someone like Itumeleng Khune might be frustrated by the fact that they are no longer the club's the first-choice goalkeeper. "When such things happen, others console themselves with alcohol. I fail to understand why we still have players like this when individuals such as Junior Khanye and Thabo Malatsi have repeatedly warned us about the dangers of alcohol." As per Sports Brief South Africa , e

Manchester United and Argentina starboy Alejandro Garnacho is probably a shoo-in for the 2024 FIFA Puskas Award following his unbelievable bicycle kick goal against Everton in the Premier League. Elsewhere on the United Kingdom, Harry Short would be considered to be part of this ballot if not for some obscure ruling that prevents non-league football goals from being nominated for this prestigious award. Harry Short, playing for Cwrt Rawlin FC - named for a pub in Caerphilly in Wales - smashed in an absolute worldie in a seventh division match against Penrhiwfer AFC. Yes, one still cannot get around the fact that Cymric - Welsh, for the uninitiated - has words that have no vowels in them when read in English, but whatever. This goal formed part of a thumping 5-2 victory over Penrhiwfer. A video that the 'pub club' shared has received comfortably over a million views on social media. It even led to the hashtag #PeoplesPuskas in response to the wonder hit. Penrhiwfer's defende

If Kaizer Chiefs and TS Galaxy felt like it, they could submit Pule Mmodi and Samir Nurkovic’s goals against Stellenbosch FC and Sekhukhune United, respectively, for possible nomination in the 2024 FIFA Puskas Award. These are just two of over 30 sensational goals that have been scored in the 2023/24 Premier Soccer League thus far, spanning the DStv Premiership, MTN 8 Wafa Wafa and Carling Knockout. Despite the negativity about South African football generally, and particularly at the highest level, some world class goals are being scored by local and foreign players which would make worldwide headlines if the top leagues on earth were blessed with such strikes. The Locked Down Spectator took time to break down the goals in three separate videos, showing that the season has not even reached halfway and already there are more than enough goal of the season contenders to pick from with one’s eyes closed. All the teams are well-represented if one thought that there was bias picking the ch

Well, "surprise, surprise!" The International Cricket Council, using common sense and logic, became the latest world sports governing body to either outright ban transgender women from participating in women's sports, or at least participating in it. You and I can't pretend to not have seen this coming, because the matter had reached critical mass in terms of controversy. For all the gobbledygook, techno-babble and pseudo-scientific jargon that was used to justify how feasible it was to include transwomen in women’s sports, it never really passed the smell test, even to the most ignorant of non-observers. It became clear that when the international governing body for swimming FINA voted to restrict transgender athletes from competing, the horse bolted there. Other organisations, fearing “cancel culture”, had clearly been scared to take the initiative before this, and subsequently drawing courage from FINA’s actions by hardening their collective and figurative spin

A school cricket match in South Africa saw ridiculous numbers appearing on the scoreboard in October 2023. During a Southdowns College and Tyger Valley College fixture in the SDC Day Night Festival in Tshwane, the latter scored an astonishing 320 runs off their allotted 20 overs. Compared to the highest ever scores in this format of the game at a List-A level, that would be six runs ahead of Nepal's 314/3 against Mongolia a few weeks earlier in September. The only story bigger than this mammoth total was the batting of young run-maker Dylan Kruger. The promising Kruger smashed a spectacularly breath-taking 256 runs from 77 deliveries. Two. Hundred. And. Fifty. Six. Runs. OFF 77 BALLS! Ridiculous! Totally obscene! It's one thing FOR A TEAM to score 200 runs in a Twenty20 match, because this total would be beyond most teams. It's another if said team scores 260-odd, which sounds un-chaseable. However, if one person scores all these runs in just under 13 overs of an innings, t

  The following article is likely to annoy England fans, and by extension, their New Zealand counterparts. It will leave the South African rugby community breathing a sigh of relief long after the fact. Don’t say you have not been warned. And it is meant in good fun. It’s the 57 th minute of the second 2023 Rugby World Cup semifinal between England and South Africa at the Stade de France in Paris. Surprisingly, the Red Roses are in a deserved 15-6 lead over the off-colour and increasingly desperate Springboks, and have earned themselves a scrum six metres away from the defending champions’ tryline. The momentum is with England, and one can sense that any score by Steve Borthwick’s men – a try, a penalty or a drop goal – will kill off any South African hopes of winning the match. And then one of the most important scrums in Springbok history occurs, as Retshogofaditswe 'Ox" Nche and company absolutely crunch England's chassis when it matters most. At the end of a victo

There is wasting time, and then there is wasting time. Mamelodi Sundowns players took gamesmanship to a new low (or high however you might look at it) at the end of the inaugural African Football League final's second leg against Wydad Casablanca. With the score sitting at 2-0 in the home team's favour at Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Tshwane - 3-2 on aggregate - the Brazilians decided to give the Moroccans a taste of some traditional North African medicine. Several players decided to waste time in pitifully attempting to take a freekick near the sideline in the visitors' half of the field. It took several crucial seconds that ebbed away before the referee, the linesman and the Wydad players to cotton on to what was happening, before they all took some form of action. The referee flashed yellow cards to the Sundowns players dawdling around the ball, before these ones stepped away from it, allowing their other sharp teammates to step up and also stuff around. Five yellow cards