South Africans Want Soccer to Return First

South Africa’s top sports official said soccer players should be the first to return to international competition now that the country has been welcomed back into the Olympic fold.

“We would like soccer to be the first sport because it is totally non-racial and is played by the overwhelming majority of sportsmen in South Africa,” said Sam Ramsamy, head of the newly recognized National Olympic Committee of South Africa.

However, FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, said it will not speed up its approval process in time to permit South Africa to compete in either the 1992 Olympic Games at Barcelona, Spain, or the 1994 World Cup in the United States. Under that process, the earliest South Africa could be admitted would be three weeks before the Olympics and after the World Cup draw, scheduled for this Sept. 8 in New York.