08 February 2022, Upington – The 2022 Males National Championships will be taking place in Upington, Northern Cape from the 07th to 12th February 2022 and the games will be played between Upington Hoërskool and Upington Primary School. The championship is held in collaboration with the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture in the Northern Cape and Netball South Africa. 42 teams across six divisions have registered and confirmed as this year’s participants.
Most teams including the then defending champions could not participate last year (2021) due to the challenges that the corona virus posed. The number of participants last year was incredibly low in comparison to this year.
“Male’s netball is an integral part of our vision of taking netball back to the people and making it more fashionable. It is particularly important for us as a federation to make sure that we support males the same way we do the females. In 2019 we committed that we would make sure the males get as much game time as possible and last year this became a reality because we had the Male National Champs in April and later in the year hosted the Males International Champs, I am excited that we were able to make sure that the trophy remains in South Africa,” said Netball South Africa President Cecilia Molokwane.
Due to the heatwave in Upington, the games will start early in the morning with a midday break before the games resume late in the afternoon daily.
Molokwane concluded by saying “For me it is important that we support Male netball and make sure that they get to go to Morocco and compete there with the intention of bring a gold medal back home.
The MEC for Sport, Arts and Culture Ms Desery Fienies said that “The tournament is a catalyst of opportunities for the players participating and coupled to this it is also a platform where social cohesion and nation building can be promoted and enhanced.
The tournament also provides the players with the opportunity to showcase their talent and potential to build the brand of men’s netball as it is still highly regarded as a female dominated sport. It is indeed a great an honour and privilege for the Northern Cape to host a sport bonanza of such a magnitude. What is even more pleasing to us is that the Northern Cape is represented by five District teams in the tournament.”
The world at large is looking at making sure that netball becomes an Olympic Sport in 2032 and for this to become a reality, more people regardless of whether they are male or female. More people need to have access to the sport and more infrastructure should be built, this will afford more people get a chance to play the game of netball – the more people we get to play, the more we can get to grow the sport.
All the 2022 Male National Championships results are available on Netball South Africa’s social media platforms.
