Sarfu’s gravy drain

The departure of yet another official, Songezo Nayo, ahead of his term from Sarfu will add another entry into rugby’s incredible ledger of profligacy.

Nayo, who apparently (and curiously) did not have a contract with the union even though his failure to sign certain officials to agreements was given as a reason for Sarfu president Brian van Rooyen’s dissatisfaction with the former MD of SA Rugby (Pty) Ltd., has allegedly left with notice pay of six months.

He will thus become another name on a long list who have received severance payments – a list which when added to some of SA Rugby’s other wasteful practices under former managers makes for shameful reading.

The propensity to push people out rather than resolving conflicts began with Springbok coaches with the like of Ian McIntosh, Andre Markgraaff and Carel du Plessis (as well as his assistant Gert Smal) being asked/forced to go and allegedly having their departures eased with a golden handshake.

It is not known whether Harry Viljoen insisted on being compensated when he left, but Nick Mallett certainly was, and recently there have been the massive payments allegedly made to former MD Rian Oberholzer and former coach Rudolf Straeuli.

Although there is mounting support for the view that the former seriously mismanaged South African rugby and there is no doubt the latter got things wrong with the Springbok team, the pair walked away with a supposed combined R5-million – a sum that virtually wiped out Sarfu’s profit in the previous financial year.

Strangely, no investigation has been launched into the circumstances of these payments (who brokered them? who authorised them? were they mandated to do so?) so they will simply be added to an incredible waste of money that could have been spent on other more worthy and needy causes.

There have also been allegations of lavish “honorariums” paid to certain officials, of extravagant overseas travel junkets, of cars bought and when this is added to the monumental waste of money expended on Sarfu’s development and marketing activities as well as excessive commissions paid to certain parties one sees an organisation that shames every administrator who has ever been part of it.

Millions of Rands have been expended on a development programme that has arguably produced not a single Springbok while one can only imagine how many millions were spent on useless and unjustifiable marketing campaigns such as “Make It Your Game” and “My Blood is Green.”

All this and Sarfu is haggling over the pay of its key assets; the players? The mind boggles, but one can only hope that if the impetuous and brash new president Brian van Rooyen, he of the unguarded statement, achieves nothing else he plugs the gravy drain.