Jon Swift
AT THE root of all the current upheaval and litigation=20 facing world rugby union is the insistence by the game’s=20 authorities that the game be an amateur sport. This=20 iconoclasm, this sticking to the ideals of a bygone era,=20 is rooted in the breakaway just on 100 years ago, when=20 some of the game’s participants, largely in Britain’s=20 industrialised areas and almost wholly from the working=20 classes, rebelled against taking the hard knocks and=20 losing pay in the process.
The rival code of rugby league comprising 13 men against=20 the 15 in union and largely devoid of the messy scrums=20 and line-outs of the amateur game was born. And the=20 players were paid.
It meant that working men in towns like Wigan, St=20 Helens, Castleford and Warrington could supplement their=20 week’s wages at the coalface or similar through a=20 payment for a Saturday game with the added attraction of=20 win and draw bonuses.
But by far the biggest attraction was the signing-on=20 fee. Tradition would have it that this amount was used=20 to buy the recipient freehold title to his home. It was=20 a system that was both honoured and accepted as an=20 honest adaptation by the working classes of a game=20 invented and perpetuated by the public school gentry.
The cynics within rugby league would have it, even=20 today, that it freed the hard men from having to push in=20 the scrums so that their lords and masters could cavort=20 in the backline.
Germane to the current state of affairs in union, the=20 contracts the players in league signed were binding in=20 that an above-the-board cash agreement between a=20 professional body and a professional player was=20 undertaken. There was nothing hidden.
In union, this has never been the case. In the days when=20 the amateur rules meant something, no-one was paid. As=20 society changed, so did this true blue ethic. While=20 still nominally amateurs, the top players in union began=20 to both expect and accept payments.
They bowed to an iniquitous system known as boot money,=20 a term drawn from the intriguing picture of an official=20 skulking round the changeroom after the game and=20 depositing cash in the players’ boots while they busied=20 themselves washing off the mud and soaking the bruises.
The amounts became too substantianl in many cases to fit=20 even the average lock forward’s size 13s. Take the R3000=20 a test the members of the Transvaal side supposedly got=20 for making the Springbok team against Willie-John=20 McBride’s 1974 British Lions. Translated through normal=20 inflation into today’s monetary terms, this represented=20 a direct payment of some R20 000 a test.
Certainly this is far more than the official allowance=20 of around R12 000 a man which the national squad earned=20 for winning the World Cup, a competition which generated=20 hundreds of millions of rands to the Channel Island=20 based World Cup Limited.
It would be naive to believe that this country’s World=20 Cup heroes earned only the officially allowed expense=20 money. You only have to look at the edict by South=20 African coach, Kitch Christie, shortly before the start=20 of the competition that the squad stop all advertising=20 and promotional activities and get down to playing=20
Certainly the faces of Francois Pienaar, Joost van der=20 Westhuizen, Chester Williams and James Small were not=20 used on posters, billboards and in national advertising=20 for nothing…no matter how orgasmic it seemed to be for=20 the actors coming face to face with the Springbok=20 captain over a steak.
But any monies earned could not, as the International=20 Rugby Board (IRB) decreed, be earned directly from=20 rugby. They had to be from promotional or other=20
In a sense, the amateur players had remained poorly paid=20 serfs within the game with the potential – admitted=20 large in the case of the stars – to earn outside it.
It was clearly a system bound for implosion. The=20 catalysts for this came in the form of the intentions of=20 two Australian media magnates to dominate the=20 broadcasting of the game.
Rupert Murdoch struck first with a R2-billion offer,=20 spread over the 10 years from the start of the 1996=20 season, for the rights to all representative rugby=20 played by South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, thus=20 far the only three holders of the World Cup.
The three unions hastily formed SANZAR, the company who=20 signed the deal with Murdoch and who were to run the=20 rugby-playing end of things.
The deal was announced by South African supremo, Louis=20 Luyt, on the eve of the World Cup final and the=20 understanding was that increased benefits would flow=20 through to every playing facet of the game, from test=20 sides to development projects.
Somehow though, the members of SANZAR had forgotten to=20 tie up the top players, who far more than any altruistic=20 motives of promoting the game lower down the scale, were=20 the real targets of the broadcasters.
It was a difficult situation. The players were amateurs=20 and in some respects beholden to the unions they=20 represented. But, as they could not be paid directly,=20 any contract had to be of a private – one hesitates to=20 say covert – nature.
The very rules laid down by the IRB dictated this. As=20 such, the legal enforceability of such contracts has=20 still to be fully tested under law.
This will surely also be the case when the IRB rules -=20 as it must – that the game is no longer an amateur=20 domain when they meet in Paris later this month. Even if=20 such a ruling is made, can contracts be considered=20 retrospective and legally enforceable? Again, the courts=20 must decide.
The issue has been further complicated by Pienaar acting=20 as an agent for Murdoch’s arch rival, Kerry Packer, and=20 getting letters of intent signed by the 28 members of=20 the South African World Cup squad to join a yet-to-be- launched global superleague.
Packer’s World Rugby Corporation – which has reputedly=20 put nearly R400-million aside for the launch – also has=20 the signatures of a number of other top players both in=20 this country and worldwide and was the entity which=20 brought last weekend’s dramatic urgent interdict to=20 prevent SARFU from putting the Springboks under=20 contractural obligation.
This came in the wake of a statement from SARFU chief=20 executive Edward Griffiths last Friday that an agreement=20 had been reached between the South African body and the=20 players and that “the storm has passed”.
One suspects that this was a highly premature appraisal=20 by Griffiths. This week’s Supreme Court hearing on the=20 issue in Cape Town and the almost inevitable string of=20 litigation which will follow the finding whatever it is=20 prove that Griffiths and SARFU will have to keep a close=20 eye on the barometer for a while yet.