Cape Town - The SA Rugby Union (Saru) has confirmed that there is a five-year transformation plan, affecting all tiers of the professional game, to ensure that players of colour comprise half of the Springbok team in 2019.
“Saru began this process in November 2012 with a transformation indaba at which all members were present,” the governing body said on Sunday.
“Many months have subsequently been spent in an exhaustive series of audits and workshops with all members over a strategic transformation plan.
“It has been a comprehensive and positive process to address a critical business and socio-economic risk facing rugby – one that to ignore would put the sport at peril.
“The Saru strategic transformation plan was approved in principle by all 14 member unions on August 13. Four provinces expressed concerns over the cost of implementing the proposals or whether the targets should be measured only nationally or at a province-by-province level. However, none of them opposed the document in principle.
“It has been shared with both Sascoc (SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee) and the Department of Sport and Recreation. The next step in its development is to return to the general council for final sign off.”
This statement came in response to reports on Saturday that a “strategic transformation plan” had been tabled andtentatively approved in mid-August.
By means of annually-increasing quotas, the goal was to achieve 50 percent representation by 2019, with 60 percent of that number comprising black African players.
As part of the next step in this plan, Bok coach Heyneke Meyer will next year be required to pick seven players of colour in match day squads of 22 players, with a minimum of five playing at all times. Next year’s Rugby World Cup squad will have to include five black players, while 10 percent of the Bok management team will have to be black, with a further 20 percent of colour. The strategy also reportedly includes plans to make official the existing quotas in the selection of amateur representative teams.
On Sunday night, Western Province RFU president Thelo Wakefield said: “I serve on the transformation subcommittee and I looked at the targets, and I sat in the Saru (transformation) meetings and had nothing to contribute because we’re (WP) already there (met the targets).
“I believe that transformation comes from the heart, but I need to be very realistic – teams we play against, like the Pumas and Free State, don’t have the luxury we have.
“I feel they will struggle to achieve some of the targets and I believe that we need to phase (the plan) in gradually. It’s good to have a guideline but it might not be a good thing to force it.
“We (WP) have 100 clubs and can draw on the (rugby playing) communities of Gugulethu and Langa. We don’t need to import players, only to develop them.
“In terms of coaches and players, we are there. We saw this coming and we were very proactive. In our (junior amateur provincial teams) we had 60 percent (representation) all selected on merit, because if we did it for window-dressing we wouldn’t have won all these competitions.”