The leadership ills of South African rugby are a product of the weakness of the sport’s organisation at provincial level, Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile said on Tuesday.
”I don’t know why it has become so weak,” he told journalists after a regular meeting with provincial sport ministers in Cape Town.
”I have never seen such weak provinces [and] provincial leaders as we have today. I don’t know what’s going on.”
He said he supposes it has to do with the advent in 1992 of professional rugby, and the tendency to confuse professionalism with commercialisation.
Professionalism has become ”a money-spinning thing”, rather than a way of honing skills.
As a result, the leaders of South African rugby have taken their eyes off the ball.
He has had nine meetings with the leadership to date, and in not one of them has there been a discussion on issues such as the strategy of resting players and not ”playing them to death”, on developing young players, or on mass participation in the sport.
”We have thrown these ideas on the table, but nobody bit. The fish did not bite. Because the eyes are no longer there. They are elsewhere.”
He said provincial rugby bosses are unwilling to speak their minds because, they said, they need money from the national body.
This illustrates the truth of the proverb ”he who pays the piper calls the tune”.
”How can we explain, for instance, the moaning and groaning that has been taking place in that leadership for the past year or so, and the provincial presidents have not uttered a word, they have not said a word?
”Am I happy? No, I am not happy,” said Stofile. — Sapa