New sponsor halts Southern Kings’ woes
● It could have been a case of a new year but the same set of problems for the Southern Kings, but the deliverance of a sponsor and new equity partner has changed all that.
With the Pro14 tournament starting on Friday, the Port Elizabeth-based franchise again had teething issues with player recruitment that affected their pre-season preparations.
The Southern Kings may be starting their Pro14 campaign against Zebre in Parma on Friday but their chief operating officer, Charl Crous kept his cards close to his chest regarding future player acquisitions.
The sustainability of the once-troubled franchise whose provincial rugby body, the Eastern Province Rugby Union (EPRU), has emerged from liquidation, is Crous’s priority, especially in light of the players they’ve lost.
“We’ve signed a number of players in the past few days and the squad is nearly complete. We’ve got a few positions within the squad where depth is a slight problem but that process is still ongoing in terms of making sure the depth is sorted out,” Crous said.
“The overarching sustainability of the sponsorship allows us not only to be able to retain our local players, but allows us to give comfort for players to remain in the region and have a platform at which they can showcase their talents and achieve higher honours. It also allows us to attract the players we want to join the Southern Kings.”
The consortium, chaired by Loyiso Dotwana, is an experienced group of business people. Dotwana described his partners — Kenny Govender, Rory Stear, Gary Markson and Vuyo Zitumane — as a group of likeminded rugby supporters, and said the Isuzu sponsorship would go a long way to alleviating the financial pressures that have dogged the Southern Kings.
The announcement of the sponsorship on Monday may have been late but it was welcomed nonetheless. “The timing isn’t very good because we didn’t have a proper preseason and that has become the norm now. The conversations we’ve been having with SA Rugby commenced towards the end of last year and things were only stitched up now. We must make the best of this difficult situation because the late announcement
We’ve got a few positions within the squad where depth is a slight problem Charl Crous
Southern Kings COO
meant we were always going to struggle with player recruitment. The sponsorship negotiation also took longer than we expected but now we have to proceed,” Dotwana said.
“Getting players on loan or buying players from other franchises is unsustainable in the long run so the academy is of vital importance to ensure we have a factory where we develop our own players to make the most of this region’s rugby resources.”
The EPRU’s liquidation meant the province’s rugby pipelines stalled, despite the abundance of talent in the Eastern Cape.
The re-establishment of the province’s talent identification structures is of vital importance to Dotwana, especially because some local players like Siya Kolisi, Lukhanyo Am, Makazole Mapimpi and Aphiwe Dyantyi had to leave the province to make a serious professional impact.
“Some of the proceeds from the Pro14 rugby tournament are earmarked for the Currie Cup so there’s going to be that added benefit for the amateur game. A portion of the sponsorship will also go towards the reestablishment of the academy that was in partnership with the Nelson Mandela University. I came into this rugby environment knowing that this is an expensive game and we need to breed our own players,” he said.