Agent denies Bok coach contract row

Media reports of a row over an “inferior” contract the South African Rugby Union purportedly offered new Springbok coach Peter de Villiers were unfounded, his agent said on Tuesday.

Rian Oberholzer said his client’s contract is still being negotiated. “There is no sensational new development,” he said.

Earlier in the day, the Star quoted unnamed De Villiers “representatives” as saying conditions proposed by SA Rugby included an “insulting” salary offer.

De Villiers has been offered R200 000 less than his predecessor, Jack White, the newspaper reported.

Asked about this on Tuesday, Oberholzer said: “I can assure you, that doesn’t come from any of my personnel.”

There was no thinking on the part of the De Villiers camp of threatening SA Rugby about the contract.

“Of course we will keep on negotiating for what we feel is right, and that is part of our ongoing discussions with SA Rugby,” said Oberholzer. “In fact, we’re sitting down with them this afternoon [Tuesday].”

He said the next step is to obtain consensus about salary matters and performance clauses on which the two parties do not agree.

The Star said De Villiers had originally been offered only a two-year deal and that “he had been set up for failure”.

SA Rugby MD Jonathan Stones earlier said De Villiers’s deal was for four years from the outset. He also said the performance clauses in De Villiers’s contract were standard for contracts of this nature.

SA Rugby and De Villiers said on Tuesday that they would make no further comment on the contract negotiations, and regarded this as a private matter between the two parties.—Sapa