Mark Barnes

How do sport and money mix? Like oil and water. It’s such a difficult balance to get right; sports can generate enormous turnover and need the cash to support development and pay the players. But if you go too far, you lose sight of the public and the ethic. So it’s turning out for Fifa, despite a fabulous world cup. Talk about an own goal! Merchant banker Mark Barnes and journalist Tim Cohen discuss this issue, and its much less benign distant cousin, war.

Since the Public Investment Corporation, the nominal investor of more than R3-trillion in retirement savings of the entire civil service, now has no board or permanent CEO, not to mention a broadly poor investment record, would this not be a great time to do away with it entirely and hand the mandate to the professionals? Merchant banker Mark Barnes and journalist Tim Cohen discuss this issue with special guest and free-market proponent Leon Louw.

This weekend has seen a feast of sporting events, and your hosts, merchant banker Mark Barnes and journalist Tim Cohen, dissect the soccer, the tennis and the rugby … deciding who should have won and who should not. Juuuuust kidding. We talk about how decision-making at the peak of sporting events can be hobbled by too much mind. And there is that other sport, the Public Investment Corporation, and its seeming inability to function properly.