Boks may play home games away
SA Rugby may schedule important Springbok “home” Test matches at foreign locations if they were commercially viable, after a change to the constitution was ratified at its 25th annual general meeting in Cape Town on Thursday, writes Craig Ray.
The meeting concluded an agreement to allow SA Rugby to nominate where Tests will be played when rugby’s global calendar kicks off in 2020.
It is part of far-reaching constitutional changes announced last December.
CE Jurie Roux outlined that with the Test agenda set until 2032‚ SA Rugby, through its new franchise and nonfranchise committees‚ would come up with a mechanism to allocate Test matches.
“The global season has been agreed at World Rugby by all its members and that gives us clarity‚” Roux told Business Day.
“The Test rugby calendar has been set until 2032‚ so we know who and where we are going to play with the exception of matches against tier-two nations.
“That gives us the chance to now allocate Tests for 14 years and today, we ratified a big constitutional change which gives SA Rugby control of Test matches,” he said.
“We can now take big Tests overseas if it makes commercial sense‚ and we can decide where to host Test matches locally.”
Roux revealed that in 2016, Brazil had made a lucrative offer to the Springboks to play against the All Blacks in Rio in the buildup to the 2016 Olympic Games. But the proposal arrived too late to make it a reality.
Roux said any decision to take Springbok home Tests overseas would be made with the welfare of the local rugby community in mind.
“A decision of that nature would happen around the allocation criteria‚” Roux said.
“If we use a four-year allocation cycle‚ maybe one year will be set aside to play the All Blacks somewhere in the world for the commercial good of the local game.”
But there was a fine balance between financial benefits and the needs of one’s own fans, he said. /—