ANDY COLQUHOUN, Cape Town | Monday 3.30pm
A POTENTIAL row over Springbok pay for the coming Rugby World Cup could overshadow the team’s build-up to the finals.
Players’ representatives have been mandated to play hard-ball with Sarfu over the negotiations although both parties are publicly optimistic that an amicable agreement can be reached.
“We’re busy trying to put everything in place so we don’t end up with the debacle we had with the Stormers,” players’ union chief executive Piet Heymans told ZA*SPORTS.
“I have spoken to the players and they are also unhappy with the A, B and
C category system that has been in place and we would like to re-negotiate that with Sarfu.”
Sarpa (the South African Rugby Players’ Association) want to push for a flat-rate contract with increasing increments for number of appearances plus win bonuses.
Under the current system players are placed in one of the three categories by Springbok coach Nick Mallett which may in no way reflect their test experience. For instance Mark Andrews, South Africa’s leading winner of Test caps, was downgraded from an A to a B contract at the end of 1998 — suffering a pay cut estimated to be in the region of R100000 per year.
Scotland’s players have recently agreed their world cup terms, averting a threatened strike, while Italy’s players have still to thrash their deal and have also threatened “industrial action.”
“We still have a lot of work to do before everything is in place,” said Heymans.
“I would think it would be the first or second week in September before
we will be able to come to some agreement.”
That would be well into the Springboks planned training camp when Mallett is sure to want players focused purely on Sarfu’s “bring it home” World Cup campaign. — MWP