New Border partnership with Sharks will see Bulldogs travel to KZN for friendly
The Sharks have announced strategic partnerships with Border and the Pumas.
While the partnership with the Pumas will be more on the commercial side, the Sharks’ deal with Border Rugby Union, which will involve an exchange of players, goes deeper in getting the side out of the doldrums.
The partnerships were confirmed by Sharks chief executive Eduard Coetzee on Friday and are expected to create excitement and hope.
This is a huge lifeline for Border, which has helped to unearth rugby players who went on to become successful Springboks.
However the union has subsided due to the infighting and financial crisis which has beleaguered it since 2013.
That saw Border spend at least four years under administration until 2022.
Coetzee gave the assurance that the Sharks were not an equity partner of Border, but this was a union set to benefit both sides and resurrect the East London-based union.
“Today is a proud day because we are building on a heritage founded during Super Rugby days when the coastal Sharks comprised the Natal Sharks, Border and Eastern Province,” Coetzee said.
“The troubles that the Border union have faced have been well-documented in the last number of years.”
The Sharks’ first attempt to strike a partnership with Border was rejected in 2022 before the election of new leadership under president Zuko Badli.
“The new leadership of Zuko and his elected leadership have a vision that we can now officially and formally partner,” Coetzee said.
“We went forward and back a lot on this, and I think the easiest way could have been to say we want to buy 51% of the company, give us control, and it wasn’t like that.
“We started from the point of collaboration from the get-go and I think what that means is Border is coming out of administration and has a real willingness to build this cradle of rugby in SA from the grassroots.
“We want to partner at every level with Border and this is what this agreement entitles us to do to start with grassroots rugby, club rugby, the commercial side, re-establishing the company, financial controls and all the regulatory functions that a professional rugby side will need.”
Badli expressed Border’s excitement about landing the partnership with the Sharks.
“It goes a very long way back if one would know the history of rugby, especially in the former Transkei and Ciskei,” Badli said.
“It’s part of waking up the Bulldogs, if I may put it like that.
“We saw it proper that we need to have an equity partner, but at this stage it’s not an equity partnership because we have no shares to sell, we have got no Pty. We are just a union.”
Badli said they had paid all the debts that had been troubling Border and were ready to start afresh.
According to Border general manager Mpumelelo Tshume, Border’s original debt was R21m. The union paid Saru in instalments from their annual allocation over six years.
In 2018 Border were put under administration by Saru after they failed to pay the R21m they owed their creditors, which included the SA Revenue Service. Since then Border has been repaying the debt.
He said when the new Border administration took over in January 2023, after SA Rugby lifted the union’s suspension in late 2022, the amount Border still owed had been R2.2m.
Border men’s side the Bulldogs will play the Sharks in a preseason friendly on Friday to consummate the new deal.
According to Bulldogs head coach David Dobela, the side will travel to Kwazulu-natal on Thursday for the clash, which will be part of the Bulldogs’ preparation for the new 10team SA Cup.
Badli also said they were planning to have a schools day which would see the Sharks Craven Week and Academy teams face Border.