SA Rugby impaled on own assegai

There is a question that has long intrigued me about local rugby. Who is Tony McKeever and how did he come to be involved in South African rugby?

I have a feeling we’re about to find out.

Obviously I know who McKeever is. He is the chief executive of the Spears and the prime recipient of a court ruling that had me checking that it was indeed the great Charles Dickens, in 'Oliver Twist', who penned the immortal line “the law is a ass.”

None of us who produce the occasional scribble on rugby are unaware of McKeever. He is given to forwarding highly emotive Press Releases from the Spears, written in the third person but emanating from his own e-mail address, listing the grievances or achievements of the Spears and painting himself as something of a rugby martyr.

But who is this man who has won a legal ruling that holds far-reaching and all likelihood highly damaging implications for South African rugby? Where did he come from? What has he done to be qualified to run a rugby franchise? How did he end up at SA Rugby? Indeed, what did he do there when he first appeared? Who appointed him? How did he come to be put in charge of the Spears?

Those questions I’m sure will soon be answered. If nothing, the Spears have shown themselves to possess a productive or, to use McKeever’s own somewhat ostentatious language, “immaculate” publicity generating machine.

Of the fact that he is a skilful manipulator of emotions I have no doubt; also that he is far too sharp for the administrators, who he so neatly outflanked in court to earn, no re-affirm, the right of the Spears to play in next year’s Super 14.

Fully 24 hours (at 1.55 pm on Thursday, August 3) before Judge Dennis Davis’s ruling (on Friday the 4th) that the Spears should, indeed, take the place Saru had awarded them in the 2007 Super 14, McKeever e-mailed us the following notice: “Judge Dennis Davis will make his verdict and ruling known on Friday 4th August 2006. Expect this transcript to be a missive of some 55 pages that will be an indictment of SA Rugby.”

That it turned out so showed McKeever’s confidence in his own position and the compelling case put by his legal team, one of whom was mentioned (concerning alleged costs of an alleged trip to the UK) in the AndréMarkgraaff/Theunie Lategan Dossier that created such interest ahead of Brian van Rooyen’s departure.

Questions about McKeever apart, the court ruling on the Spears, while logical in terms of Saru’s numerous affirmations of their original decision, is nevertheless incomprehensible to my legally untrained mind.

It is rather like a couple going to court to ask for a divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences and receiving a judgment that not only should one party continue to pay excessive and unlimited costs to maintain the other but that they be compelled to stay in the same house!

Allegations of financial irregularities at the Eastern and Southern Cape franchise have often emerged – indeed, if speculation is to be believed they have in a year spent just on double the R3-million they were originally allocated – so SA Rugby are faced with a “leaking tap” scenario over which they have no control.

In addition, the Spears’ victory means the Cats and, more worryingly. their stadium Ellis Park, will be eliminated from the intercontinental tournament and with no clear rugby ruling on what happens at the end of 2007, other than that the place of the Spears has been entrenched for two years, it means the once-mighty Transvaal (re-incarnated as the Golden Lions) are facing ruin.

Against this it has not been demonstrated, at least to my mind, that the Spears have the ability, either administratively or competitively, to compete successfully in an interprovincial competition that has been described as the hardest in the world.

With a squad far short of the number required (raising the possibility of even more expenditure) and including a number who were drawn from other regions, they struggled (albeit with very little preparation) against established South African Super 14 squads while an additional worry was how emotionally, even racially, charged these matches were; the Spears players allegedly having been whipped into a frenzy to prove their worth.

And there is little doubt a non-competitive South African side will bring censure from South Africa’s Sanzar partners, Australia and New Zealand, and raise the spectre of breach of contract suits – there we go with the bloody law again!

One clear problem facing SA Rugby is the one of sponsorship for the new franchise. Finding a sponsor, certainly at the levels that have been mooted, for the Spears is not going to be easy; McKeever demonstrating his naivety about the world of sports marketing by broadcasting the interest he is receiving from agents when most experienced managers view them as they hyenas of their world.

One possible solution might be for SA Rugby to enlist the help of government to keep the Spears finely honed.

South Africa’s rugby administrators were stampeded into the decision to admit the Spears to the Super 14 – remember the six into five doesn’t go scenario – by the minister of sport, who came out in overt support of the fifth team going to the region of which he once was premier so it might not be too impertinent for rugby officials, when they get back from Sydney, to ask Minister Stofile whether it would be possible to channel some funds into the coffers of the Spears.

If nothing else, financial backing from government will send out a strong message from the sports minister that he is confident of the Spears’ ability to run a tight ship, but I know that is fanciful thinking. Politicians threaten and talk. They don’t pay and support.

The reality, though, is that the Spears will not go away and only time will tell, as lawyers gather in panelled boardrooms to check on the rights of the Cats, the Stormers, the Cheetahs, the Sharks and the Bulls (in ascending order!), whether they will fly far and true or plummet to earth because of acrimony, poor administration and sub-standard performance.