SOUTH African Rugby Union chief executive officer Jurie Roux on Thursday moved swiftly to allay fears that one of South African Super Rugby’s “big five” would be forced to drop out of the competition. This after the Southern Kings had been guaranteed a spot in next year’s tournament.
Roux, along with Saru president Oregan Hoskins and Saru deputy president Mark Alexander met representatives of the five and the Southern Kings in Johannesburg on Thursday.
The meeting was prompted by a joint letter of concern from the Lions, Bulls, Cheetahs, Sharks and the Stormers sent to Saru last week in which they detailed their concerns over imminent relegation at the end of the Super Rugby season.
The five have been in limbo over their future after Saru’s general council made the decision to include the Port Elizabeth based Kings in next year’s Super Rugby competition last month.
Sanzar, Super Rugby’s governing body, refusal to expand the competition before the conclusion of the 2015 Super Rugby season has led to fears that an existing SA team would be dropped from the competition.
Roux said that the meeting was cordial and that all the parties remained hopeful that a lasting “solution to the benefit of South African rugby” would be agreed upon after a meeting with their Sanzar partners, sponsors and broadcast partners next month.
Roux also revealed that Brand de Villiers (Bulls), Kevin de Klerk (Lions), Cheeky Watson (Kings) and Brian van Zyl (Sharks) would accompany himself, Hoskins and Alexander to represent SA at the meeting.
“We had good discussions in the interests of South African rugby. Obviously people will be worried if there is the slightest chance that they can fall out (of the series).
“The discussions were about trying to find some solution that would be to the advantage of everyone involved in the game,” said Roux.
Contrary to Roux’s assurances though, there was still little relief to be seen on the faces of officials of the five concerned as they continued in long and secretive dialogue after the meeting last night.
It seems as if the words of Sanzar CEO Greg Peters, that it was almost impossible for any expansion to happen before 2016, were troubling officials.
It’s now up to South Africa to convince Sanzar to expand the Super Rugby competition as early as next year.
“The conference format system has, by its nature, has an equal number of teams in each country or it doesn’t work.”
“We have sold that format to our broadcasters and commercial partners through to 2015 so that is the next time we could realistically consider expansion,” Peters said earlier this week.
Roux is adamant that the issue of expansion is possible and with South Africa holding the aces with the bigger slice of television viewership and revenue in Sanzar.
“There are a number of things we will put on the table.
“But we would like to workshop that internally,.
“Greg Peters is acting within his mandate.
“He has sponsors and broadcasters that he has to answer to and he can’t say anything that is outside of that agreement at the moment,” said Roux.
“But he has always stipulated that both Sanzar and the partners of Sanzar are open to discussions,” said Roux. – Pretoria News