Soweto Marathon to go ahead as planned with African Bank as headline sponsor

JOHANNESBURG - African Bank will on Wednesday be announced as the new headline sponsor of the Soweto Marathon that will go ahead on the first Sunday of November despite earlier pronouncements to the contrary.

The launch of the 2023 edition of the People’s Race is scheduled for Wednesday at Sakhumzi’s Restaurant on the tourist hub that is Vilakazi Street in Orlando West.

With the slogan ‘Lace Up: Dare to Run Your Own Race’ the Soweto Marathon will go ahead despite the bitter behind-the-scenes battles between some members of the Soweto Trust Board and Athletics South Africa (ASA) as well as Central Gauteng Athletics (CGA) over broadcast rights.

After ASA signed a seemingly all-encompassing broadcast deal with pay-channel SuperSport last year, the Soweto Marathon Trust felt they were hard-done by the sport’s national governing body as they felt they were the ones responsible for negotiating a broadcast deal for the race.

The Trust then negotiated their own deal with public broadcaster SABC as they felt the three-in-one event (full marathon, half-marathon and 10km) popularly referred to as “The People’s Race” should be accessible to the average South African.

But with ASA and SuperSport threatening to go the legal route, SABC could not televise last year’s race which was incredibly also not beamed on the pay-TV and an independent company that wanted to stream the race was also stopped from doing so.

Cue a bitter clash between the board and ASA via CGA which resulted in STM chairman Sello Khunou, Ishe Sadiki and Pam Tainton being suspended. While they are appealing their suspension, the trio have since been replaced on the board by Thokozani Mazibuko, James Masilo and Watson Shilembe while Steven Khanyile and Thulani Sibisi remain members.

The trio sent out a media statement last month that the race had been cancelled only for CGA to refute that by saying they had no right to do so.

CGA general manager Mandla Radebe was quoted by the SABC then as saying: “The Soweto Marathon is being held hostage by three individuals who act as if they own it (the race). What grounds do they have for cancelling the race? The sport should not suffer due to hidden motives of these members. They don’t have the authority to cancel the event over internal matters. The race belongs to Soweto running clubs, not them. The race has not been cancelled and it will take place in November whether they like it or not.”

Radebe’s words are proving true with this year’s edition set to be launched on Wednesday and a headline sponsors coming on board for the first since Old Mutual backed out of sponsoring road running events, the Soweto Marathon being one of them.