{"id":55782,"date":"2025-04-27T21:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-27T21:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/55782\/"},"modified":"2025-04-27T21:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T21:42:07","slug":"saru-updates-sas-four-major-franchises-on-their-urc-status-planet-rugby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/55782\/","title":{"rendered":"SARU updates SA’s four major franchises on their URC status : Planet Rugby"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa\u2019s major franchises the Bulls, Lions, Sharks and Stormers have been assured of their participation in the United Rugby Championship (URC) for the next four years.<\/b><\/p>\n

The South African Rugby Union (SARU) broke the news to the four franchises via a letter after the governing body informed them last year that they would have to reapply to participate in the URC.<\/p>\n

SARU<\/a> then drafted a document which gave each of the aforementioned franchises a fair chance to apply for URC participation over the next four years, according to strict criteria.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a process that had to be followed,\u201d a source told the Rapport website.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s unfortunate that the timing worked out this way\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governing body must adhere to its own rules and regulations. It\u2019s unfortunate that the timing worked out this way, but it was decided before Rian Oberholzer<\/a> was appointed as the CEO.<\/p>\n

\u201cSARU must have gone through a process again to identify the four URC<\/a> teams. Everyone had a chance and there is nothing strange about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the franchises\u2019 shareholders and one of the other major sides\u2019 CEOs feel the process of reapplication was a waste of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally, we have put together a neat document that we will be able to use for discussions with sponsors and so on,\u201d said the shareholder.<\/p>\n

Springboks fly-half edging closer to South Africa exit \u2013 report<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI think sponsors just accept that the status quo will be maintained. And contracts make light provision in case that\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cPractically it doesn\u2019t change anything. It was just politics. SARU wanted to show the small unions that everyone can get a chance to participate in the URC. You just have to put in a good tender, then it could be you.<\/p>\n

\u2018There are no other possible teams for the URC\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThe URC apparently didn\u2019t even know that we had to participate in the process. From their point of view, there are no other possible teams for the URC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the CEO said he is still unsure how the franchises will benefit financially now that SARU will become a full shareholder in the URC from June.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne will first have to see what expenses there will be with flights, among other things, but I estimate that each local franchise will receive approximately R5 million to R6 million more annually because SARU is now becoming a member of the URC,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big difference now that we become a member versus just a participant is that SARU does not have to pay annual participation fees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe money that SARU got from SuperSport and someone like Vodacom now goes straight to the URC. In the end, it works out more or less the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/b> John Plumtree gives forthright verdict on Sharks\u2019 URC title hopes after \u2018game of two halves\u2019 against Ulster<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa\u2019s major franchises the Bulls, Lions, Sharks and Stormers have been assured of their participation in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[8924,225,19910,12,4151,934,2196,79,19911,16,15,4510],"class_list":{"0":"post-55782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-bulls","9":"tag-home-page","10":"tag-lions","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-rugby","13":"tag-sharks","14":"tag-south-africa","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-stormers","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-united-rugby-championship"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114412109495639811","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}