South African Rugby Union (Saru) president Brian van Rooyen and his deputy, Andre Markgraaff, kissed and made up on Thursday following months of recrimination and emotional outbursts from both parties.
The men jointly addressed a press conference at Ellis Park on Thursday after day-long crisis talks and presented an apparent united front, despite the simmering discontent between the two still not fully resolved.
Two major issues — the Super 14 franchise allocation and the Markgraaff dossier — were left on the table, and lawyers have been called in by Saru to deal with the issues.
Van Rooyen confirmed that the Saru management committee will continue to run ”the day-to-day affairs of the union” and that the interim committee appointed by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) will not take over.
Markgraaff’s 14-page document that makes several serious allegations against Van Rooyen is in the hands of Saru’s lawyers and it seems those accusations will surface again.
”We have decided to deal with these issues internally,” said Van Rooyen.
All the men who resigned this week, namely Markgraaff, vice-president Mike Stofile, chairperson of the board Theunie Lategan, Blue Bulls president Dolf van Huyssteen and Koos Basson of Western Province were asked to rescind their resignations, with only Lategan indicating he will not return.
The June 17 election for office-bearers of Saru was cancelled as the rugby bosses showed a determination to fix the crisis in their sport on their own, without the interference of the government or Sascoc.
”The problem was we wanted to be bigger than the game,” said Stofile. ”Egos got involved from all of us.”
Van Rooyen added: ”What is happening is not good for the game. We have a collective responsibility to clear up this mess.”
Only time will tell whether this new-found admiration between these previously warring parties can be believed.
Sascoc, which had an ”extremely constructive session” with the council, left early but reserved judgement on the outcome.
”We’ve been in session and I believe it was extremely constructive. It was the first time we [Sascoc] have addressed the president’s council; previously, we had dealings only with the management committee,” Sascoc president Moss Mashishi said.
Earlier, indications seemed to suggest that Van Rooyen had gained the upper hand in the feud with Markgraaff when the chairperson of the board of directors and one of Markgraaff’s biggest backers, Theunie Lategan, walked out of the president’s council meeting, vowing never to return.
In a shock move, Lategan came out of the meeting at about 12.20pm and declared: ”I’m done with rugby.”
Most of the major role players were present when the crisis meeting kicked off at Ellis Park in Johannesburg on Thursday morning. — Sapa