Western Province were not prepared to “sell our souls” and that was why the union was not included in the list of venues for Test matches for next year’s British and Irish Lions tour.
News 24 reports that WP President Tobie Titus told the Afrikaans Sunday newspaper Sondag that the union was not prepared to compromise their stakeholders, and ultimately had to give up the fight to host a Test match. It is the first time that Newlands will not host a Lions Test in the history of the composite side.
“There were too many logistical problems, ” Titus told Sondag, “If we wanted to meet the quota of tickets that they wanted for the Lions supporters, then we would have had to turn away our season ticket and suite holders in the process.
“Newlands will not be part of any agreement that states that 11 000 tickets need to be made available for the Lions supporters. WP Rugby Union could not give that sort of assurance and that is why Newlands was not given a Test match.
“We did get a consolation prize of a game against Western Province.” Titus did however slam the organisers for the way they put the itinerary together.
“They should have first negotiated the number of tickets with the various provincial unions before they signed the agreement with the Lions tour management.
“Rugby is a business, and we could not allow a situation where the Lions tour management walk all over us. We could not also give up our birthright to look after our loyal supporters.”
Newlands will also host a game against the Emerging Boks.
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WPW
It seems you WERE paranoid 😉
What is the Newlands capacity? surely 11k tickets is not THAT big an ask?
Titus, Wagner and co. sold their souls,along with everything else that WP owns along time ago. 👿
Clayton
so what you are saying is if THAY had invested the money and pumped it back into Stadium expansions you would have had a Lions test match? 😉
And maybe a positive bank balance
So what IS the Newlands Capacity?
48 000
Sheez so that is pretty small then.
I am not sure how accurate the SB figures are but they Have the S14 Stadiums as follows.
Ellispark – 59,611
Kings Park – 55,000
Loftus – 52,000
Newlands – 50,900
Bloemfontein – 36,538
if these figures ARE right then the test allocation is also correct IMO.
The three biggest stadiums have tests, the 4th biggest Stadium has the next most important match.
Yea i find it strange, that they feel they didn’t want to sell their souls given the fact they have pretty much sold everything else…..with just Newlands left to go !
Well…they won’t be selling any tickets either…
No backhanders for Titus and co no doubt!
Those figures are not correct, the EPS capacity is 62500
And they are adding another 10k for 2010.
Thanks Walter
And the biggest crowd we’ve had this year was 11000 for the Blues match…