SA Tourism acting CEO Themba Khumalo was unflinching when he defended a proposed R1-billion marketing and sponsorship deal with English Premiership League club Tottenham Hotspur.
Speaking during a media conference in Johannesburg on Thursday, Khumalo said the deal has not been signed, but noted that the government is interested.
The matter has divided the nation with some criticising the move amid crippling power cuts, high rates of crime and the general state of the ailing economy.
The idea is to have the SA brand appearing on the sleeve of Spurs jersey, similarly to an arrangement between African nation Rwanda and Arsenal, another soccer giant in the UK.
The three-year deal, if it sees the light of day, will start from 2024 until 2027.
“The mandate of SA Tourism is to market South Africa locally and internationally and to get international travellers to visit the country,” said Khumalo.
“For the last 20 years, money has been spent on foreign soil to market the country, every single year. It’s not a new thing, so the version of the story that you [the media] are being told is not true. It was leaked out of context.”
Khumalo explained further: “The envisaged deal has nothing to do with football, but with accessing the aggregate audience that football brings, and to get that audience to travel to our destinations.
“The thinking that it [the proposed deal] is about supporting a certain club is misguided. We are accessing the audience to come [and] spend UK pounds and foreign currency in our country. The money invested in tourism is not the same money required for electricity and potholes.
“But can you go and align it with all the stakeholders, including the minister [of tourism Lindiwe Sisulu], the director-general, Treasury and provinces. We were still on our way before this thing was leaked.”
He stressed that nothing has been concluded or signed.
“There is no signed contract, but there has been a conversation. Is there an intention to sign? Yes. There was a provisional approval.
“There are no third parties involved in this deal. This will bring international spend of R88-million into the South African economy. It was conditional, so you can’t go and sign until you fulfil the conditions.
“The minister [of tourism] had not been fully briefed at the time the story broke. The minister could not be briefed until the board had made a decision.
“So, that meeting was on Tuesday evening and the story was already in the public domain. So, there is no way that the minister could have known about the details of this deal,” Khumalo said.
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