Ken Borland

South African rugby fans can rest easy that the four Rainbow Cup franchises won’t merely be going through the motions in yet another tournament of local derbies when the new competition kicks off on Saturday, with the massive incentive of a place in the European Champions Cup possibly being up for grabs.

Talks are apparently underway for the winners of Rainbow Cup SA to be given a spot in the 2021/22 European Rugby Heineken Champions Cup. That prestigious and lucrative tournament has prizemoney of about one million euro for the champions – the equivalent of nearly R17.5 million, which would be a huge boost for any of South Africa’s franchises given the constrained economic outlook for rugby in this country.

The Champions Cup brings together the 20 top teams from the three major European leagues – the English Premiership, France’s Top 14 and the Celtic Pro14, in which the four South African franchises are scheduled to appear later this year.

Conquering Europe may be as ambitious a plan as some of astronautics’ efforts to land on Mars but the rewards are great and will be worth the immense planning and effort. One of the things that will be required is larger squads and talks are already underway with SA Rugby for them to increase the 45-player limit for franchise squads.

Bulls coach Jake White is certainly in favour of further expansion into Europe.

“Hopefully something will be formalised because we want to take part in the Heineken Cup. There are massive incentives to play in that tournament and I remember when I coached Montpellier, the French clubs put a lot of pressure on you to qualify for that event. The importance was shown when Leinster played Munster in the Rainbow Cup last weekend and rested 13 players because they have a Champions Cup semi-final this weekend,” White said on Friday.

“Leinster have used 57 players this season in all competitions and so we’ll try and find out from SA Rugby if we can have bigger squads and more money because it’s important we get the same resources as those European clubs. If we lose players to the Springboks and get a couple of injuries, will we be strong enough to compete at three levels – Currie Cup, Pro14 and Europe?”

Cricket South Africa’s Social Justice and Nation-Building Commission is only going to have six months to do its work, but the organisation is going to ensure the ombudsman, Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, has all the resources required to complete his mandate.

“It is a very limited period – six months – so there is a sense of urgency to investigate and adjudicate all the submissions received, which by-and-large will deal with unfair discrimination. I will try and keep a tight rein, strict adherence to the program, but I must warn the public that sometimes these inquiries take on a life of their own. Hopefully we will not need an extension of time.

“I initially felt I needed three years, but after useful discussions with the Interim Board of CSA, I am now in respectful agreement, I am convinced, that it is doable in six months, but very difficult. There is never enough time for any commission dealing with the legacy of history, but there has to be a set time for making decisions so that you are focused. Yes, I wish there was more time, but I will do the job,” Ntsebeza, who sat on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, told a virtual conference on Thursday.

“It maybe felt like forever in getting SJN up and running, but there has been a lot of work going on in the background. CSA had to make sure we were totally ready to support Advocate Ntsebeza operationally and we have already set up facilities for him and his support staff. We don’t want this to be a tick-box exercise, so sufficient resources have definitely been made available to make sure he can deliver his mandate,” CSA acting chief executive Pholetsi Moseki said.

Ntsebezi admitted that he could not control CSA’s reaction to his recommendations, but he was confident they will implement the transformation imperatives he tables.

“There is no provision in my terms of reference or any statute that forces them to implement my recommendations; they remain recommendations. But I don’t think CSA would have taken the opportunity to embark on this project, they would not have made the appointment in the first place, if they were not serious. But there are no guarantees.

“I have no magic wand and I don’t have the mandate to use a big stick on CSA. But if they don’t implement then it will be time spent in vain. In my discussions with the Interim Board, I got a sense of commitment and an appetite to see this through, otherwise I would not have taken the job. I would hope that those tasked with implementing my recommendations will rise to the occasion,” Ntsebeza said.

The Sands of Time are running out for Cricket South Africa’s Members Council so their last desperate attempts to block progress and the restructuring of the Board should be no surprise. The same self-serving administrators who put their own interests ahead of those of the game as a whole and allowed cricket to be captured were never going to vacate their seats on the gravy train without an almighty struggle.

That they have been operating in poor faith becomes clear when one considers that they themselves agreed to the establishment of the Interim Board on the basis that they would introduce a majority independent board chaired by an independent director, but now that the memorandum of incorporation amended to include these prerequisites has been presented, they have refused to accept it.

Their excuse for not ratifying the changes was that they were instructed to do so by their constituencies, but it seems this is a flimsy reason. Follow-up investigations with the provincial boards have shown that the ones who mandated a vote against the new MoI did so based on the incomplete picture they were presented by their provincial president sitting on the Members Council. And eager to have more of a shot at a place on the new Board.

The major sticking point appears to be the definition of an ‘independent’ director and those wanting to stymie progress have warned that this will lead to cricket being run by people who have no love nor knowledge of the game. Which is pure fear-mongering and much of it has been deliberate and not just the understandable caution when approaching a landmark change in how things are done in cricket administration.

There is an inevitability that the recalcitrant administrators will eventually lose, but some of them seem willing to hold out for as long as possible, never mind if it breaks the game in this country. As has been said, and proven, several times before, the Members Council cannot take on the Minister of Sport and hope to win.

Nathi Mthethwa holds all the aces and has all the legal weaponry he needs to force them to comply. Unfortunately, many of these will devastate the game – much like a couple of nuclear bombs ended World War II but also caused immense suffering and damage. The sports minister can withhold funding or remove the right to award national colours from CSA, effectively suspending the Proteas’ involvement in international cricket.

Let’s hope that matters do not have to go that far.

It causes immense frustration that the players – through a strongly-worded statement from SACA, sponsors, media and the general public have all expressed their great dismay at the attitude of the Members Council and yet the stubborn miscreants who have already done so much damage to the game continue to defy all calls for them to embrace change or move out.

Minister Mthethwa will justifiably be enraged by the lack of respect he has been shown and that is certainly the emotion I feel when confronted by the sheer, selfish obduracy of the parasites on the Members Council.

In their desperation, the Members Council have also, when it suits them, invoked Sascoc’s policy that members need to have a majority of non-independent directors on their board. Never mind that CSA ignore what goes on at Sascoc 95% of the time, that organisation is squelching through the mud of their own corporate governance crisis.

In 2017, then Minister of Sport Thulas Nxesi instituted the Zulman Commission to investigate the governance and management of Sascoc. It red-flagged conflicts of interest surrounding board members and recommended that they follow the benchmarks of international best practice and amend their board to have more independent directors.

Having more non-independent, hands-on directors in provincial structures might make sense, but a national board, considering their oversight function and the billions of rands they deal with, must be dominated by an independent contingent whose only concern is the overall good of the game.

The world has changed, top-level sport is no longer an amateur endeavour that can be run by the blazer brigade. It is big business and one needs heavyweights of the corporate world to steer the organisation.

Hopefully the light bulb will come on soon in the Members Council boardroom and they will ensure a more certain future for the game in this country.

The Bulls are going into the Currie Cup final with just one change to their team for the semi-final – Johan Grobbelaar starting at hooker and Schalk Erasmus going to the bench – which means disappointment for Sevens Springbok Stedman Gans.

The outside centre has been one of the stars of the season for the Bulls, but was a late withdrawal from last weekend’s semifinal against the Lions with a hamstring strain. Coach Jake White said on Thursday that Gans has not recovered enough for him to be willing to gamble on selecting him.

“I don’t think Stedman is ready, it would be a helluva risk to play him, especially since there’s often extra time in finals. So he’s not available, it was a tough call for him and I’m sure he’s very disappointed. But I’ve been very happy with Marco Jansen van Vuren as well, he’s defended well, especially against the Lions, who will really stretch and test you. So he has massive confidence at the moment,” White explained.

White chose to deflect a question over what the Bulls had learnt from their loss to the Sharks in their previous meeting, a 32-29 defeat in Durban last month, by saying if one learns more from defeats than from victory, then the Bulls are the “masters of learning” given their failure to win the Currie Cup since 2009.

“We should be the masters of learning then. The Bulls are tired of losing, tired of not playing in finals, so it’s a massive game on Saturday. We’re playing at home, so it’s a great opportunity and there is a tremendous hunger in the side. It’s an incredible achievement to host the final and now the cherry on top would be to win. Remembering that guys like Jean de Villiers and Schalk Burger, two of the best players I ever coached, never won the Currie Cup,” White said.

The 2007 World Cup winning coach acknowledged that winning the Currie Cup would be a highlight of his career, while adding that an international star like Duane Vermeulen had never lifted the famous old trophy as a captain.

“It would mean a lot to me to win because I have great respect for the Currie Cup. And you can see the players’ desire, which is giving them energy and an unbelievable drive to get it right on Saturday. Sometimes it’s great not to have won it before. It’s a great honour to win the Currie Cup, you think about the great players who have drunk out of the trophy …

“It’s a long time since the Bulls last won the Currie Cup and then you look at someone like Duane, who has won the Currie Cup twice and a World Cup, but he’s never won as captain. And the players can see what that means to him, so they are lifting their game. When your captain is a legend like that and he wants it so badly, you’re going to do whatever you have to do,” White said.

Bulls team – David Kriel, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Marco Jansen van Vuren, Cornal Hendricks, Stravino Jacobs, Morné Steyn, Ivan van Zyl, Duane Vermeulen (captain), Elrigh Louw, Marco van Staden, Ruan Nortje, Sintu Manjezi, Trevor Nyakane, Johan Grobbelaar, Lizo Gqoboka. Bench: Schalk Erasmus, Jacques van Rooyen, Mornay Smith, Jan Uys, Arno Botha, Embrose Papier, Chris Smith, Marnus Potgieter.