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The establishment of the Southern Kings franchise took a step forward when the South African Rugby Union approved a proposal to play friendly matches against the five South African franchises in 2011.
In a statement released on Wednesday, SARU reaffirmed its commitment to the establishment of the franchise in the Southern and Eastern Cape rugby regions.
The Executive Council of SARU met at Newlands and appointed a subcommittee, consisting of the newly appointed SARU CEO Jurie Roux, SARU Deputy President Mark Alexander and Southern Kings CEO Stefan Pretorius to finalise the Memorandum of Understanding between the three SEC unions and SARU and the SEC franchise business plan.
The subcommittee was instructed to finalise the draft business plan within one month and to present it to SARU at the next Executive Council meeting.
The presidents of Eastern Province, Border and SWD met with the Executive Council and during these deliberations SARU again reaffirmed its commitment to establish a franchise in the strategically important SEC region.
SARU President Regan Hoskins praised the positive manner in which these discussions took place.
"Our next step is to draft a comprehensive business plan so that we can move forward," explained Hoskins.
"The establishment of a franchise in the SEC is a top priority for us and I am delighted we are now starting to put concrete steps in place to make this a reality."
The Executive Council also approved a Southern Kings proposal to play friendly matches against the five South African franchises in 2011.
Meanwhile, the SARU Exco also discussed the issue of transformation at length. SARU is not happy with the current pace of transformation and the issue was referred to its Transformation Committee for further deliberations.
"The Executive Council agreed unanimously that we must tackle the issue of transformation aggressively and in a more urgent manner. We discussed several options in this regard, but in order for us take decisive steps, we decided to refer it to our Transformation Committee for further deliberations," said Mr Hoskins.
Comments
rugbyphile says...
Transformation, to be effective, must surely involve mainly continued longlasting massive boosts to rugby infrastructure and facilities for school age players in disadvantaged areas and a huge increase in the number of school age players. If that doesn't result in transformation; ie a significantly greater number of black players in top teams, then nothing else will! (Recognise the possibility that transformation may never happen to the extent hoped for, pity though that might be).Yes, pick a black player before a white player in the Currie Cup if they are of roughly equal ability. But, for example, picking Januarie in the SA team before the 4 or 5 scrumhalves who are clearly better than him on current form maybe achieves short term placation of political pressure; it is counter-productive to transformation long term. The boost to school age players will bring its own obvious benefits anyway regardless of the numbers who emerge and graduate to the top level--you won't get transformation by cherry-picking a few and promoting them beyond their ability.
Posted 07:42 23rd September 2010
abrad says...
I get annoyed everytime he shows his face> he has a habit of torpedoeing winning coaches and backing losing coaches> T
Posted 21:24 22nd September 2010
5Lock4ward says...
How big are they going to let Super rugby get before they realize that they need to drop it and mimic the north in regards to each country playing a domestic season of its' own with only the best teams playing in a Heineken Cup type tournament? Then we could finally have a NH vs SH club team championship game and stop talking about how weary and over-worked/travelled the players are.
Posted 20:56 22nd September 2010
jmanngod says...
great .... more cannon fodder
Posted 19:49 22nd September 2010