Feuding rugby unions will establish a task team that will investigate the most feasible way of entering into contracts with Springboks, SA Rugby said on Tuesday.
Following a meeting in Cape Town attended by representatives from the South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu), SA Rugby and the South African Rugby Players’ Association (Sarpa), it was decided that the task team will start work in early March.
In recent weeks Sarpa has been threatening strike and legal action as a result of SA Rugby’s refusal to honour promises allegedly made by former coach Rudolf Straeuli.
He allegedly promised five Springboks — Bakkies Botha, Victor Matfield, Richard Bands, Danie Rossouw and Derick Hougaard — new contracts for 2004.
SA Rugby chairperson Dr Theunie Lategan said its intention is to negotiate a new dispensation in a ”fair, equitable, consistent and transparent manner”.
”In addition we will ensure that such negotiation takes into account current market conditions and is done on the basis of mutual respect between Sarpa and ourselves,” he said.
Sarfu and SA Rugby also gave Sarpa an undertaking that they will give priority to reaching finality on an agreement regulating the relationship between Sarfu, SA Rugby and Sarpa.
But as SA Rugby’s spokesperson Anthony Mackaiser later said, it has made it clear that it is not prepared to change its current position and will therefore not award any short-term contracts that Straeuli had allegedly promised.
In response, Sarpa indicated at the meeting in Cape Town that it will review the options available to it under the current circumstances.
Those attending the meeting, however, said it appears that the threatened strike may be temporarily put on hold but that court action is still a possibility.
Sarpa representatives were not available for comment but had previously warned that strike action could not be discounted in the wake of recent comments attributed to Sarfu president Brian van Rooyen, in which he accused the Springboks of being greedy and allegedly claimed they did not deserve their salaries.
Sarpa is said to have considerable support among South Africa’s professional rugby players.
Former Springbok centre and Sarpa chairperson Hennie Le Roux believes that if circumstances deteriorated to such an extent that a strike was called, the players would back the call. — Sapa