Newlands Stadium’s future a step closer to finality

THE Western Province Rugby Football Union (WPRFU) will only find out next month if they will be able to go ahead with plans to sell Newlands Rugby Stadium.

Even though the process to sell the stadium received a boost on Friday when the application to declare Newlands Stadium as a provincial heritage site was rejected by the Inventories, Gradings and Interpretations Committee (IGIC) of Heritage Western Cape (HWC), the final decision lies with the council of the HWC.

The council of HWC will meet on March 7 where the parties can make final submissions on the process and where the recommendation to not declare the stadium as a provincial heritage site will be tabled.

The application to have Newlands Rugby Stadium declared a provincial heritage site was made by former rugby players led by ex-springbok captain Wynand Claassen.

On Friday Claassen made submissions during a virtual IGIC meeting to strengthen the application but, after deliberation, the subcommittee recommended that the application be rejected.

The WPRFU also made submissions to the meeting to further fight the application.

The recommendation to reject the heritage application comes after the IGIC scrutinised the public participation results of the application this past week and final submissions made by the WPRFU and the applicants led by Claassen.

The public participation process, which the CEO of Heritage Western Cape, Michael Janse van Rensburg, described as very important, was concluded earlier this month.

The WPRFU had asked its affiliates, clubs, schools and supporters to reject the application to declare Newlands Stadium a provincial heritage site.

The sale of the stadium is in limbo after the application was launched and the process to finalise it can only be continued once a decision is made by the HWC council.

But the clubs in the union will eventually have the final say if Newlands is eventually to be sold and who they want as an equity partner for the union.

The sale of the stadium will first have to go through SA Rugby’s executive council and needs to be approved by the mother body’s decision-makers

Only thereafter will the matter be tabled to the clubs by the SA Rugby-appointed administrator, Rian Oberholzer, for the final decision.

Some clubs, though, are opposed to selling Newlands and are fighting to rather have it redeveloped so that the development can be a source of income for the union in perpetuity.

This could be another stumbling block in the process to sell the stadium.

The WPRFU is in debt and owes millions to Dream World Investments 401 Proprietary Limited.

The sale of Newlands Rugby Stadium could be the solution to their financial troubles.