EP Rugby President, Cheeky Watson had a brief media conference in Port Elizabeth this afternoon to explain the current situation at the Union as well as the press release that stated SARU’s involvement in the Southern Kings for the 2016 Super Rugby season.
Watson explained that SARUs involvement to bring stability in an event where the sponsorship failed to materialised was always Plan B.
“The cash flow crisis we have experienced is like a Greek tragedy. We want to thank SARU for stepping in to assist and we welcome whatever contributions they bring,” Watson said.
Watson said part of the intervention envisioned was to have members of the SARU mobi-unit come down to assist in support roles and bolster the Kings coaching staff.
Watson also said that the junior players who received their salaries today, was from broadcasting rights received by SA Rugby, but the senior players and staff were still unpaid.
One can can probably argue SARU stepped in a tad too late, after they lost quality players like Tim Whitehead, Lizo Gqoboka, Tim Agaba, Obi Luther and Sylvian Mahuza.
Watson said he had already been in discussions with some of the other unions around gaining access to fringe players on loan to the union ahead of the tournament.
“Unions have indicated that they will make fringe players available. What I have found is that given the opportunity, these players will rise to the occasion,” he said.
Watson also confirmed Currie Cup coach Brent Janse van Rensburg as the head coach of the Southern Kings for the 2016 season.
Pushed about a possible vote of no confidence being sought against him by certain club structures, Watson said “I’m not holding onto this position. If someone wants to step in, by all means,” he said.
Watson said he was still confident that the funding from the R200 million sponsorship would materialise, but said he did not want to commit to any new timelines.
“I have already broken every timeline given. I am nervous to come up with another,” he said.
When asked why business was so reluctant to invest in EP Rugby, Watson said he was not sure, but that this was an ongoing problem that had existed for all the years that he has been involved in rugby since 1976.
Watson ended by saying, “there is so much negativity as a whole, we need to get behind the city and our sports teams, regardless of who is mayor or president, we need to build up and be positive.”
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Really now
What a disgrace,fiddling and playing around while people starve
A lot of hot air and no substance as usual. Honourable thing would be to step down, especially as local business willing to come to party if Watson leaves.
Warriors cricket side a good example where union realised that inside the structures there were no candidates ready and an experienced and proven administrator whith no baggage where brought in. Same needs to be done asap
“… and we welcome whatever contributions they bring.” Yep. Usually any CEO would be ashamed of taking handouts, but with this Cheeky bastard… While he’s at it he should go beg for proper management classes as well.
I still have a sneaky suspicion we could soon be hearing about him and some creative management of funds and maybe even helping little Luke with an overvalued contract as well? I have never trusted this guy.
So in essence – he is blameless, and everyone outside of the EP Kings is responsible for the current situation. 🙄
Ah, that explains everything. In other words…nothing has changed, SARU has come in to try and sort things out…and it has all really happened a few weeks too late…
@pastorshark (Comment 8) : i would like for some sharks fringe players to get an opportunity at the kings next season.will be good for the sharks and the players.
Wonder if luther obi will make his way back to the kings as one of those fringe players?
@50shadesofshark (Comment 9) : I agree…that would be a win win situation…
Someone who has been at the head of so much crap…and who is holding a press conference to inform people about the crap…should not have the sort of grin on his face that Cheeky has in the pic of the press conference in this article:
http://www.sarugbymag.co.za/blog/details/kings-cash-crisis-a-greek-tragedy
Zzzz?zzzzz?zzzzzzzzzzzzz
Cheeky is Cheeky. Now back to the Sharks
All this shit makes me glad that I’m a Sharks supporter and we can’t complain to much as things could always get worse!!!! Really feel for their supporters!!!!
Say what you want about cheeky but the guy loves his union and they seem passionate about transformation. My girlfriend got me pdivvy’s book for my birthday and I only just started it but saru are no friends to those that want to see change in this game. Even hiring van rensburg for head coach, they could have given that job to p.divy who is way more qualified but because he refuses to be they puppet they didn’t
@Poisy (Comment 15) : Who appointed van Rensburg? Wasn’t it Cheeky?
@Poisy (Comment 15) : I doubt that PDivvy will be getting too many coaching offers soon, he has done absolutely nothing with UWC (based slap bang in the middle of rugby playing country). The fact that UWC have shown him the door says it all.
As for Brent Janse van Rensburg, well I was hoping that somehow he would have wormed his way to Sharks country when the Kings players started bailing. I think he did very well with with the Kings in the CC considering the predicament they were in the whole season. They remained competitive throughout and never let their heads drop, they were motivated and I think that had a lot more to do with van Rensburg than Cheeky.
@Salmonoid the Subtle (Comment 17) : a lot of his teams have been successful, so maybe things didn’t work out at uwc but his track record is impressive compared to a lot of coaches coaching super rugby franchises. The fact that he gets no job offers from these unions is appalling and if he was white it would be a different story. South african rugby does not care about black players or coaches they prove it time and time and time again, the fact that at under 19 rugby for a semi final when divvy was coaching the south african team they called and told him to change the line up because there were to many blacks in the team is fucking disgusting. I have lost all respect for saru they continue to alienate and undermine my people and they can all fuck off starting with oregan hoskins
This situation is obviously not great but a few things i have questions about. Yes we all know players werent paid and there will obviously be other massive expenses that need to be paid. But where is the income? The CEO etc cant be expected to pay out their own pocket. Yes he needs to source sponsorship but you cant force anyone to sponsor you. Where is the sponsorship from PE business ?? Do they really care if there is a team in PE or not? Does SARU stepping in now mean they will foot the expense bill? and if so where are they diverting funds from to pay those bills? And if SARU isnt footing the bill then they must be securing sponsorship…and if they are where were these sponsors beforehand? So yes the Kings Board hasnt been great at all…but i just get the feeling not many others want to invest in the team either.
@SheldonK (Comment 19) : basically Kings main sponsor will be SARU. Maybe that’s the deal Watson was talking about!!!!!!!!!
Why can’t we just go the way of football and have all the teams owned by Russian billionaires, those guys don’t take shit.
@JD (Comment 20) : That concerns me as where is SARU moving the funds from?
@Seth101 (Comment 21) : Ive long argued that we need to privatise teams in SA if we want to keep and attract the best players.
@Poisy (Comment 18) :
Ahhhh that time of the month I see. 😆
@SheldonK (Comment 23) : Completely agree, bring in money money and leadership, get rid of political meddling, win win.
@SheldonK (Comment 22) : ag who knows?!?!?! probably from the other 5 teams!!!!!!!!!!
@SheldonK (Comment 19) : “Watson ended by saying, “there is so much negativity as a whole, we need to get behind the city and our sports teams, regardless of who is mayor or president, we need to build up and be positive.”……sounds like he doesnt like his mayor or president.
I actually find that statement a bit bizarre because I feel the PE faithful have been pretty good at supporting the Kings.
@Poisy (Comment 18) : What an awful comment (and that’s coming from me 😆 ) I’ll avoid commenting on anything the breaks the rules and just say, what track record? Please list his achievements…
Also with all his outspokenness and and involvement in political movements, why would any club want to take that on?
@SheldonK (Comment 23) : @Seth101 (Comment 25) : ja doing that will bring better players but also will cause a lot of other problems.
Just take soccer English Premier Soccer League is one of the strongest in the world but yet England’s soccer team is a joke!!!!! Even French rugby is just a little better of than English soccer.
Fine balance must be kept between getting the strongest Provincial teams vs still keeping your national team competitive.
@JD (Comment 29) : English sport is on a decline, rugby, football, cricket, none are as good as they used to be. I think that’s more a reflection of sport development and sport in schools over there. But that’s just my opinion.
@Poisy (Comment 15) : Very true….the biggest stumbling blocks in SA rugby are the Suits!
@Salmonoid the Subtle (Comment 27) : Agreed the fans have by and large been very good. I think he might be more referring to PE business and government in getting behind the team financially through sponsorhsips etc. That would be my guess
@Seth101 (Comment 28) : go read his book I don’t have to list them. The amount of qualifications and work his done with varies teams speaks for itself. Fuck the rules today what I said is the truth they can ban me for that I don’t care
@SheldonK (Comment 32) : Yeah probably is, big business and the ratepayers that want to haul his ass to court as well.
@Poisy (Comment 33) : His book….what an unbelievably reliable source of information, no bias at all I am sure.
@Seth101 (Comment 35) : opinion on people sure. Track record is something else that can be checked
@Seth101 (Comment 30) : problem with England national teams are the play pools they can chose from is getting smaller as more and more overseas players play in their leagues.
@Poisy (Comment 36) : But thats just it, his most recent track record (with UWC) is what prospective employers will be looking at. I understand your frustration with SARU and the SA unions but also bear in mind that coaches ply their trade on the international market and he has also not been headhunted by any foreign country – not Namibia, Kenya, Moroccoo, etc.
@Salmonoid the Subtle (Comment 17) : read an article where the kings were also looking at securing the services of michael du plessis -consultant or even dor.
@50shadesofshark (Comment 39) : That could be interesting, is he even involved with rugby at the moment. Not your average conformist (especially for those days) rugby player was Michael Dup.
@Salmonoid the Subtle (Comment 41) : not sure.dont think so.crazy guy in his playing days,thats for sure ! 😀 but very talented.
@Poisy (Comment 36) : I hear a lot of frustration in your comments and I won’t pretend to know enough to go there. I do have an honest question, though: If Cheeky is anti-establishment and PdV is anti-establishment, why didn’t Cheeky get PdV appointed as coach? I would have thought that would be a good match…
@Poisy (Comment 18) : Well it seems as if the Stormers job is up for grabs. PDivvy is well known to the rugby people of Cape Town so he should be a shoe in for that post.
@Poisy (Comment 18) : really?? You’re disgusted! Lol. We have to put up with that with that in nearly every single springbok team in the professional era, as well as franchise teams. The list of players who didn’t deserve to wear the springbok jersey is too long to list. Fact is if P Divvy was such a great coach why hasn’t he been picked up by an international team or even a French club? He’s an embarrassment simple as that