Super 15 bids: SA Rugby last to submit!

Since June 8 2005 SA Rugby has carried the Eastern Cape Super Rugby franchise around its neck as a self-imposed albatross after declaring that SA had six Super Rugby franchises and this past week has seen a glaring display of dereliction of duty by SA Rugby’s Sanzar representatives.

The 15th team, in an expanded Super 14 competition, from 2011-2015, will play in the Australian conference of a new-style competition, which will have three five-team conferences in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

SA Rugby has had four years to prepare, plan and submit its bid for this moment, in fact long before this moment, so that when a media release in The Australian declared on Wednesday that nine bids had been received — seven from Australia, two from New Zealand and none from South Africa — you can just imagine the shock of the prospective fall-out from this omission. It probably led to one of the SA Rugby media men sprinting down the corridor, release in hand, saying: “We have to get our bid in right now or face a public-relations nightmare combined with the wrath of the Eastern Cape rugby communities, government and Saru for being a sham!”

It turns out that SA Rugby did eventually get its expression of interest in at the very last minute (thank heavens for the time difference!) to bid for the 15th Super Rugby franchise, to be based in Australia, albeit the last of the ten submissions in, that was then simultaneously announced by a hastily put-together media release, designed to declare that all was well and nothing amiss and untoward. Well, we will see about that come October 31. A hundred days away.

First off you have to wonder about the sincerity and commitment of those involved in the Sanzar matters not so much to establish a sixth Super Rugby franchise, as this exists, but to deliver a fixture and tournament for the team — this oversight and gross negligence is tantamount to a dereliction of duty within Saru.

Time and time and time again SA Rugby has, with impunity, violated and breached its own president council resolutions of 2005, franchise participation agreements 2006-2010, Saru constitution and promises made to the minister of sport and parliamentary portfolio committee of sport. Not a good record of administration and model of a concerned parent body.

It started with a choreographed move in February 2006. SA Rugby’s then president, Oregan Hoskins, with the SA Super Rugby cartel made up of the Bulls, Sharks, Lions Stormers and Cheetahs, to frustrate and oust the sixth franchise from the Eastern Cape in spite of there being president council resolutions and binding franchise participation agreements.

This then led to the unilateral termination by SA Rugby in March 2006 of the “financial support and/or procurement of sponsors agreement” for the sixth franchise, the Southern Spears that resulted in SA Rugby losing a Cape High Court case, which ordered that there is indeed a legal and binding agreement. This stands to this day, till May 30 2010. This matter has yet to be resolved.

Fast forward to June 16 2009 when the “replacement” Super Rugby franchise, the Southern Kings, was mooted to be launched and play in the Super 15 so as to make overtures and inducements to the SA government in order to get their financial backing for the SA Rugby, Rugby World Cup bid for 2015 or 2019. The result of this will be announced by the IRB tomorrow, July 28, and you can judge for yourself the success or failure of that result. An effort which cost in the region of R20 million.

This is what is really going on.

There will be a fifth Australian-based Super Rugby franchise to make up a Super 15 Super Rugby tournament from 2011-2015 as a consequence of SA Rugby conceding that point to their Sanzar partners.

In addition, SA Rugby conceded 5% of revenues from the broadcast deal to their opposition, the ARU and NZRU. That has the double whammy of taking R2 million a year from each of the 14 SA Rugby unions for the next 5 years and giving this cash to the NZRU and ARU, making them more competitive at our expense! A not insignificant R150 million lost to our competition.

Simply put, South Africa’s Rugby community is twice the size of the combined rugby market of New Zealand and Australia and generates more than 50% of the revenue and value, so the 38% that Brian van Rooyen, former president of SA Rugby negotiated in 2004, was shattered with the gifting of 5% by Andy Marinos, SA Rugby team manager, to New Zealand and Australia, two months ago. This is a “have you lost your mind?” moment. Here is the size of the respective rugby markets.

1. Australia — Number of registered players: 82 818
2. New Zealand — Number of registered players: 139 968
3. South Africa — Number of registered players: 511 561

The New Zealand Rugby Union received two expressions of interest from its Hawke’s Bay and Taranaki provinces, both part of the Wellington Hurricanes Super 14 franchise. They submitted these to Sanzar last week.

Australian bids included one from the Victorian Rugby Union in Melbourne, a city expected to be a favourite for the 15th franchise.

By the time the 5pm deadline with the Australian Rugby Union closed Wednesday, the expected bids from Melbourne — the Victorian Rugby Union and from Geoff Lord’s Belgravia Group supported by Melbourne Victory — from the Western Sydney Rams, the NSW Country Cockatoos and the Gold Coast/Far North Coast (NSW) had all arrived.

But so too had one from VicSuper15, a Kevin Maloney-resourced consortium fronted by Ella, backed by another former Randwick stalwart Ray Evans and also including the three men who recently resigned as VRU directors, Craig Dunn, Glenn Fowles and Nick Farnan, and from an unidentified Queensland group.

It was the breaking of this news in Sydney that led to the sprint down the corridor of the fifth floor of SA Rugby in Newlands, resulting in the submission of the Southern Kings. There is no substance, rationale or logic to a South African team based in Australia even considering bidding for such a place and will clearly drop out in the early rounds.

Sanzar, the consortium that runs the Super 14 and Tri-Nations competitions, will examine the expressions of interest and decide in August which of the 10 bidders will be invited to join the full tender process.

Those bidders will make formal application for the Super 15 vacancy and Sanzar will weigh those bids and factors such as:

1. Financial sustainability;
2. Player strength;
3. Geographical location; and
4. Time zones.

Sanzar expects to name the new team by October 31.

Expect much drama to unfold before and after this but know that SA Rugby was caught napping and will then have to deal with the consequences accompanying this failure and lack of planning, which will occur right about the time that intense lobbying starts for the election of a new SA Rugby president in February 2010.

Memories of the lost fortune of R10 million to each of the 14 unions will be raised with the 14 presidents, the meltdown of Canterbury, their kit sponsor, the failure and cost of the Rugby World Cup bid, the cost of the abandoned Irish Test, the cost of the Argentine Test, the conceding of 5% of revenues to our main opposition and the incoherent tournament structure of the Super Rugby Super15, the Vodacom Cup, the Currie Cup revamp, the cost of keeping the Eastern Cape franchise out since 2006, the sanction and reprimand by the IRB of SA Rugby bringing the game into disrepute, the haemorrhaging of cash, lying to the parliamentary sports portfolio committee, breach of the president council resolutions, violation of the Saru constitution, accountability by SA Rugby administrators and so it goes on and on.

We are in for a fine time of people running for cover, the hills and the change rooms.

Bring on February 2010!