SA Rugby bosses and the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) executive emerged full of smiles from talks on Thursday, adamant that common ground had been reached.
SA Rugby now has until the end of April to report back to Sascoc on the planned way forward with regard, in particular, to transformation in the sport and continuing disputes in the rugby fraternity.
Sascoc president Moss Mashishi has indicated he wishes to have medium-term (four years) and long-term (eight years) goals set out in the document. Those goals will be made public, probably in May.
”It was a very fruitful meeting,” commented Mashishi. ”We concentrated on two key areas, namely the reported issues of the disputes within SA Rugby as well as transformation. And I’m happy to announce those matters are resolved.”
Mashishi kept the scheduled press conference brief and details of the actual resolutions remain somewhat of a mystery.
The meeting seems to have brought SA Rugby a step closer, however, to ironing out the controversies reported in the media over the past few weeks.
The meeting also included Sascoc’s vice-president, advocate Berrington Mkhize, SA Rugby president Brian van Rooyen, deputy president Andre Markgraaff and vice-president Mike Stofile.
Van Rooyen, smiling broadly, echoed Mashishi’s sentiments, adding: ”Our report will be a public document and we will circulate it for comment by all parties. We have already been working on our Transformation Charter and we are on track to deliver it.
”I think this was an excellent meeting — it was long overdue.”
On the issue of the controversial 2011 Rugby World Cup bid, Van Rooyen stoically maintained that his organisation has the backing of both the government and Sascoc.
”I believe their backing is a given. We only touched briefly on the subject today.”
It seems, then, that transformation — or lack of it — was the major talking point. In that regard, several important points emerged.
Van Rooyen said: ”We need to redefine how we look at transformation. The collective view is that whether rugby must transform is no longer an issue.
”We must move to a new level. A more scientific approach as to what needs to be done is important. We need to be more analytical and the process must be outcomes based. There is, of course, also the time factor.”
The ball is now firmly in SA Rugby’s court and after finally securing the support of the two most important interested parties for the 2011 bid, plenty of hard work lies ahead.
Said Van Rooyen: ”Lots of work lies ahead for our transformation committee.” — Sapa