The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) has called on the Tourism Department to exercise transparency over reports of the South African government’s proposed sponsorship of the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.
Reaction to the proposed sponsorship deal:
Documents obtained by the daily online publication Daily Maverick reportedly reveal that government is on the verge of finalising a sponsorship deal worth around R1 billion with the London-based club.
Spurs is the 10th richest club in the United Kingdom and its revenue for 2022 was just over €406 million.
“The Tourism Department has a budget that has to market the country to attract more tourists, so they are going to claim the autonomy to do so. What we are saying is you need to do so transparently and show us the return on investment. What we are saying to government is can we see the numbers and how you arrived at this conclusion? If it is the case and it is legitimate and independently corroborated, then spending a billion rand to receive a return of 10 billion rand in tourism in a short space of time for additional tax revenues, that would make sense. So, we really need to see the transparency,” OUTA’s CEO Wayne Duvenage elaborates.
