Abstract:
This chapter focuses on the philanthropic, educational and socially responsible responses to the COVID-19 pandemic by sports personalities and sporting
bodies in the African context. The chapter contributes to knowledge by
showing that sports personalities and sporting bodies have an obligation to
help communities in times of pandemics such as COVID-19 and other forms
of disasters. It is from these communities that fans and spectators come. These
fans and spectators have legitimate expectations on their favourite players and
athletes, their teams or clubs and the associations to which these teams and
clubs affiliate to do heroic actions in times of need. These heroic actions can
take the form of messages of encouragement, material donations from personal resources, fundraising, the mobilisation of other resources and behaveing in a socially responsible way so as to model expected behaviour such as
hand washing, physical distancing and respecting lockdown rules. Fans and
spectators see sports personalities as celebrities and role models. This places
an obligation on celebrities to return the favour. Some fans support their favourite sports personalities and their clubs even when they experience poor
performance as it happens even to the best sports teams or clubs. Through
narrative review of both news media and scholarly literature, the chapter identifies and describes philanthropic, educational and responsible behaviours by
sports personalities, sport clubs and sport associations in the African context.
Scholarly literature suggests reasons for heroic actions during disasters, while
news media demonstrate the types of these heroic actions. Celebrities use
news media to show fans their heroic actions, and sports journalists are willing
to report these heroic actions as there are no live sports to report.
