South African Rugby will seek to cut spending by 1 billion rand (€48.65 million) over the next eight months in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and has plans for a new domestic competition to replace Super Rugby and the Pro 14 on the 2020 calendar.
SA Rugby also announced on Tuesday that it had reached an agreement in principle with various stakeholders for pay cuts, including the players’ union and employees, which had to be formally ratified, but did not put a figure on the reductions.
The governing body confirmed plans for a one-off six-team domestic competition between June and August, as it looks increasingly likely that the Springboks’ internationals against Scotland and Georgia in July will not go ahead in that month.
The new competition would feature the Bulls, Cheetahs, Lions, Sharks, Stormers and Southern Kings, and be followed by the domestic provincial Currie Cup competition.
The move comes because of the likelihood that travel restrictions will deny chances for South African sides to compete in both the Super Rugby and Pro 14 tournaments.
“Many businesses find themselves in a fight for survival and rugby is no different,” SA Rugby chief executive Jurie Roux said in a statement. “We face an extremely threatening crisis and we had to take united and decisive action to address it head on.
“I’d like to commend the employees, players and the unions for the collaborative and realistic way they have approached this crisis.
“We are all in this together and we all quickly agreed that we have to equally contribute to the solution.”
Roux added that the financial pressure on the organisation was unlikely to ease until rugby was back in full swing, hence the plan to play a domestic competition to provide broadcast partners with content.
“Our income is tied to the playing of professional rugby and without matches we potentially don’t have any income. We don’t know when we will be able to resume the season so have had to budget against a range of scenarios.
“Unfortunately, we had to make some very tough calls in terms of our local competitions, but we have the buy-in and support from the local franchises and unions, Sareo, MyPlayers and our broadcaster, SuperSport, in this regard.”
