The following from News24:-
"SA Rugby is reportedly planning to scrap Springbok contracts, with players to earn bigger Test match fees instead.
Netwerk24 reported on Sunday that the idea was proposed by Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus, who is also SA Rugby’s director of rugby.
If the proposal is accepted, there would no longer be joint contracts for certain players, which currently sees SA Rugby paying 70% and a provincial union 30%.
The report added that the new system could come into effect from the 2020 season.
It added that players with joint contracts currently earn an average of R3.7 million just from SA Rugby, who spend around R60 million a year on 16 players.
Springbok players currently do earn match fees but the number would significantly increase to anything between R250 000 and R400 000.
Erasmus' Boks are next in action when they tackle England at Twickenham on November 3. The team's year-end European tour also includes Tests against France in Paris (November 10), Scotland in Edinburgh (November 17) and Wales in Cardiff (November 24)"
There always was a problem with player contracts of SARU. Some of the contracts were awarded to players with a poor record insofar as playing for the Springboks is concerned. Two typical examples are SARU contracts awarded to Frans Steyn and Juan de Jongh.
Steyn got a SARU contract for three years and in that period he played 5 tests in 2012 and was poor in all five tests. He was so poor in Super Rugby in the 2013, 2014 and 2015 years that he never played a test again for the Springboks in the rest of his contract period. Meyer indeed called him up to one of his camps and he stormed out of the squad when he found that he will not start for the Springboks in the next test and left for Japan. Bad news and in the three years he costed SARU near to R7,5 million without producing anything in return.
De Jongh was another example of a loss-making contract with SARU in 2015. In his three year contract period he played in just one test and failed miserably.
That type of thing is what gave SARU contracting a bad name. It rewards players who do not produce the goods and is just for purposes other than performance as players. I am not really in favour of what Erasmus is recommending - but it must be admitted that the present scenario leaves too much space for abuse as mentioned in the case of the two players referred to above.
