RUGBY:Jon Swift
PERHAPS the most amazing aspect of Francois Pienaar’s defection to the ranks of English league rugby came in the shape of the contention by South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu)chief executive Rian Oberholzer that the axed World Cup captain still has a future in Springbok rugby.
That is surely stretching credibility to new limits, even by the standards of the game in this country. Simple logic would dictate that if Pienaar did have a future, he would never have signed his multi-million rand deal with Saracens in the first place.
The deal, reportedly worth well over R2- million a year during the three years Pienaar will brave the mud and rain of England, is a sign of the regard the player is held in by the rest of the rugby-playing world.
Interestingly, by declaring Pienaar a free agent from the end of this year, it also releases Sarfu from the contract they least wanted to carry without having to look for the likes of the “golfing loophopes” which have started emerging of late.
It is no secret that Sarfu, faced like all of us with the savage spectre of the declining rand, are anxious – and quite rightly so – to trim back the wage bill the World Cup and looming professionalism forced on them.
There is already talk of trimming back the national squad to 26 and relying more heavily on match fees for internationals. There are also murmurs of some of the other, currently less productive, World Cup contracts being bought out. This, too, is sensible.
Professionalism caught rugby by surprise in much the same manner as the Welshmen of Neath are renowned for grabbing their opponents in the southern regions of their rugby shorts.
Look at the state of finances at Northern Transvaal, one of the biggest unions in the country and certainly one with the most ardent and enduring support. The deficit the union reported in its last set of accounts was blamed largely on the number of players contracted by the Blue Bulls.
For, surely, no business on earth outside the celluloid confines of Hollywood agrees to pay in advance on the strength of performances yet to be delivered.
South African cricket has taken the lead in this regard … as indeed it has in so many aspects of fitting sport and professionalism into the ill-fitting jigsaw of our national existence. Players are awarded graded, annual contracts for not unreasonable monthly salaries on their performances from the season just past. This is then filled in with negotiated – and eminently fair -match fees for the Tests and one-day internationals they play.
The following year’s contract is again negotiated on exactly the same basis. What is more, the contract criteria and the figures involved in these contracts are given up front, so transparency is assured.
Rugby seems belatedly about to follow the logical path to payment that cricket has so sensibly mapped out.
But one two-sided thought emerges from the pressure lifted on all concerned by Pienaar’s decision to mix it with the Poms.
First, there cannot be too many contracts like this one being offered, and secondly, in a country where the non-governmental agencies and private sector are increasingly being called on to do the jobs governments and officials of all persuasions were elected for, we cannot continue to look for outside assistance to bail us out.
Pienaar, one feels, deserves every last cent. He has been treated abysmally and whether new coach Andre Markgraaff wins or loses in the long run, that fact does not change.
In this regard, it is surprising that the selectors – given that they did not see him as an automatic Test choice – did not give Pienaar the option of leading the Wednesday side on the current tour to help blood the new crop of Test players. They could have had his depth of knowledge and experience for nothing, or at least for the fee they had already committed to.
Saracens have had to pay for these self-same attributes with one of the biggest contracts in world rugby.