RUGBY: Jon Swift
THE heart of the misguided and unbearable paternalism which has caused so much damage on so many fronts in this country beats strongly in the bosom of South African rugby. It threatens to rend the game asunder in this country.
For nowhere else is arrogance of the “papa knows best” syndrome more aptly illustrated than in the latest round of thinking on how South African players outside the World Cup squad members who have already pledged allegiance to the South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) should be handled.
Sarfu has appointed a four-man committee to examine and blueprint the future of rugby in this country. Sitting on this panel are Louis Luyt, Natal president Keith Parkinson, Griqualand West supremo Andre Markgraaf and Edward Griffiths, a paid Sarfu official.
While the mandate for this committee is drawn widely to encompass the game in its entirety, there can be no doubt that the vast majority of its efforts must go towards the question of player remuneration. To suggest otherwise would be merely to broaden the smokescreen the mandate already provides.
It is a very South African reaction to form a committee to examine any problem in the mistaken belief that the ennui of drawn-out talks will make this problem go away. It is a pattern of thought which merely obfusticates the issue and makes it even more difficult for the differing parties to talk to one another
And in the light of the establishment this week of a Players Association drawn from five of the six Test unions — Transvaal were not asked to join — and some 140-plus players signing for Kerry Packer’s World Rugby Corporation under the banner of the newly-formed body, the new Sarfu committee becomes a nonsense even before it has sat. For, despite any claims to the conrary, the players still have no representation and no direct line to just how South Africa’s share of the R2-billion in TV rights money from Packer’s arch rival, Rupert Murdoch, is to be administered or spread.
Tiaan Strauss, one of the 10 provincial representatives present at the announcement of the players’ representative body, put it succinctly.
“We are not children,” he said, “yet we continue to be treated that way. Neither Griffiths nor any of the other three represent the players. We want a player — chosen by the players — to put forward our thinking, not a Sarfu employee that liaises between the appointed committee and the players.
Strauss, one of the most honest forwards ever to pull a Springbok jersey over his head, has encapsulated in this all that is wrong with the game in this country.
Contrast this with the way Australia — with South Africa and New Zealand, members of the triumvirate which accepted Murdoch’s deal under the SANZAR banner – – have handled the issue. The Aussies, faced with precisely the same unhappiness from players at provincial — in Australia, read state-level as is the case in this country, have gone directly at the
Two current players will get representation on the national executive, with the same number of players getting a seat on state executives.
Of more immediate import though is the Australian decision to tell the world at large exactly what share of the Murdoch millions will go to the players … a staggering 95 percent.
While South Africa is understandably in a different position with regards to the split between players and development, it is in the failure to give the players any real and relevant information on how this country’s share of the SANZAR deal will be spread that the flashpoint has been given full flame.
We surely need a larger share of any of the bountiful largesse available to go towards promoting the game among those who have been denied its pleasures during the years of apartheid than is perhaps the case in Australia and New Zealand. The players would probably be the first to push this particular viewpoint.
But it seems that it will be extremely difficult for these and other options now that the gulf between those who play the game and those who administer it has seemingly been widened at a stroke.
In short, Australia have opened direct lines of communication rather than installing an outdated switchboard leading to often unmanned or permanently engaged extensions. The Sarfu policy has no logic and arguably no cogent direction.
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