Various parliamentary committees have tried over the years to consign the Springbok emblem to the dustbin of history, and only rugby has an official dispensation to retain it. Next week South Africa will take the field in New South Wales with a new jersey bearing a new Springbok logo.
You have to wonder whether it was merely by coincidence that Jose Mourinho expressed his lack of interest in Wayne Rooney’s future exactly 24 hours after the teenager had occupied no fewer than 13 pages of Sunday’s News of the World. Not that Rooney had done anything wrong to earn his prominence.
The Jonny Wilkinson debate rages on. Given the same quotes this week, half the newspapers decided he was on his way back, the other half decided England’s World Cup winner was in serious dwang. The problem is, nobody can agree just what the England flyhalf has wrong with him.
Premier Soccer League (PSL) glamour club Kaizer Chiefs and the mighty Orlando Pirates will be out to book their places in the 2004 Vodacom Challenge final when they face up to the respective Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) club onslaught of TP Mazembe and ASV Club semifinal action on Sunday.
With a month to go until it all kicks off again, here is the first part of the ins, outs and maybes from the transfer market. See who is in as Arsenal’s new goalkeeper, which midfielder is leaving Aston Villa and which £5-million will possibly join Birmingham City.
Click here for part two
Prisons throughout South Africa could be unguarded at the weekend as the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) prepares to defy a court interdict preventing its members from striking. The interim interdict, obtained in the Pretoria High Court on Monday evening, prevents union members from engaging in any form of action that negatively impacted on service delivery.
If you want to make sense of the third African Union summit, follow the money. The 40 heads of state gathered in Addis Ababa this week enthusiastically adopted a new vision and strategic plan defining the AU’s place in the continent. But African leaders giggled when the new AU chairperson, Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, asked for a 1 200% increase in the organisation’s current budget.
Forward enforcer AJ Venter is one of seven changes coach Jake White made to the Springboks’ team in Sydney on Friday for next week’s rugby Test against the Pacific Islands in Gosford. Venter has been in strife with judiciaries and was suspended twice for a total of 10 weeks last year, missing the World Cup in Australia.
Euro 2004 introduced some new and explosive players to the world of football. Dominic Fifield takes a look at them, from Roma’s Antonio Cassano — born a day after Italy won the 1982 World Cup in Spain — to PSV Eindhoven’s Johann Vonlanthen, included in Euro 2004 only because of injuries to Marco Streller and Leonard Thurrer.
Here it is. The big Premiership prediction. From the man who told you Holland would win Euro 2004: Chelsea will win the championship this year. Neal Collins sticks his neck out on why the Blues will win the English Premier League — and he’s prepared to cartwheel naked if they don’t.