AfriForum seeks to block R1bn Tottenham deal
South African Tourism (SAT) says there has been a malicious leak of internal documents regarding the Tottenham Hotspur deal while AfriForum says it plans to block the deal.
The Daily Maverick reported on an almost R1bn sponsorship of the football giant being considered by the tourism entity.
Questions have been asked about the decision to channel the money into a single project. SAT said the sponsorship would yield R88bn in international spend into the local economy.
EWN reports that SAT acting CEO Mzilikazi Themba Khumalo yesterday told the media there was no signed contract yet, but that the SAT board had conditionally approved the deal.
‘The money that is invested in tourism is not the same money for energy or potholes, there are other departments for that. Our legislative mandate is about persuading international travellers to spend their money in the country,’ Khumalo explained.
He said before the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, tourism was contributing 6.4% to the country’s GDP. This has since dropped to 3.2%.
He said SAT was not asking for ‘new money’ to go into the deal, but rather that SAT would be aggregating the money that would go into their smaller projects to the deal.
AfriForum, which blocked SA’s donation to Cuba with an interim interdict, intends doing the same with SA Tourism.
According to a Beeld report, the lobby group addressed a letter of demand to SAT seeking an undertaking that the deal will not be concluded or executed pending further clarity.
AfriForum seeks details on where exactly the £42.5m would come from and whether the economic and social challenges of South Africans have been considered. Cosatu, the Tourism Business Council of SA (TBCSA), and Swim SA were some of the organisations joining the choir of protest.
Tourism expert Gillian Saunders said SAT will spend at least 40% of its marketing budget on this single project.
‘Rwanda’s sponsorship of the English Premier League soccer club Arsenal did very little to increase tourist numbers to that country,’ she said.
TBCSA CEO Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa said nobody he has spoken to in the tourism industry thinks it is a viable idea.
He said the government should rather focus on markets with tourism growth potential for SA, such as India and China.
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