SA rugby to return to racial quotas

JOHANNESBURG-NAMPA/AP The South African Rugby Union (SARU) said on Wednesday it is reintroducing contentious racial quotas in one of its domestic competitions next year, when teams in the Vodacom Cup will have to pick at least seven black players in their match-day squads and at least five in the starting XV. Two of the seven black players would have to be forwards, SARU said, in a statement that effectively conceded South Africa hadn't made enough progress in changing a sport that was historically reserved for whites and previously closely connected to the racist apartheid regime. SARU announced that the initiative had been passed by its decision-making Executive Council on Monday and discussed with South Africa's 14 provincial teams on Tuesday. SARU President Oregan Hoskins said it was "a critical step" in helping transformation in a country where rugby's progress 19 years after apartheid ended is still often gauged by the racial makeup of teams. "This decision to introduce measurable targets underlines SARU's commitment to transformation," Hoskins said. Unofficial racial quotas were initially tried in rugby and cricket, once all-white sports in South Africa, following the country's first democratic elections in 1994 but were considered a failure and caused deep discontent among some players. SARU also said on Wednesday that it hadn't decided on punishments for teams that didn't meet the quotas next year in the Vodacom Cup, a domestic competition below South Africa's main Currie Cup tournament and the southern hemisphere's three-country Super Rugby competition. That admission suggested difficulties in dealing with rugby teams that couldn't immediately field seven black players. It was also unclear how SARU would classify players. SARU specifically referred to "black players" and seemingly not world-class internationals like Bryan Habana, who is considered mixed race and not black in South Africa. No official racial quotas exist for South African Super Rugby teams or the national team, the Springboks, but it is accepted that the Springboks will never field a team that is all white.