From news24:
Hendrik Cronjé
Cape Town - It will cost the SA Rugby Union (Saru) almost R13 million to get rid of current coach Allister Coetzee.
The Springbok coach needs to explain his record of only winning four out of 12 Test matches to Saru’s high-performance committee on December 13.
While Coetzee does not have a performance clause for his first year as Bok coach, there is great unhappiness among Saru members because South Africa does not feature among the top five rugby nations in the world.
There is also still uncertainty whether Coetzee will stay on as coach after a nightmare season, but a decisive answer to this will only come early next year.
A special Saru annual and board meeting will be held in Cape Town on Friday.
The high-performance committee, which earlier this year recommended Coetzee as the right candidate for the coaching position to replace Heyneke Meyer, is made up of Kevin de Klerk, James Stoffberg, Francois Davids and Pat Kuhn.
The committee will make recommendations to the executive committee after its meeting with Coetzee.
The executive committee will then make a recommendation to Saru’s general counsel.
City Press understands that Coetzee earns, apart from his R4.2m salary, a bonus for every Test won. However, given the Boks’ woeful performance this year, those earnings are significantly less than the R6m he earned at Japanese club Kobelco Steelers.
In Coetzee’s favour is the fact that Saru and its unions are currently experiencing a financial squeeze.
Unless Saru receives financial aid from a private company or the government, it will probably not get rid of Coetzee and the majority of his management team.
Qualified successors to Coetzee include Rassie Erasmus, Johan Ackermann, Franco Smith and John Plumtree – but they will cost Saru millions because they are already contracted elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the constitution committee of Saru wants to change the rules so that the 14 presidents and executive managers will no longer have a say in the appointment of the Springbok coach.
If the committee gets its way, only the executive committee – Mark Alexander, Davids, Stoffberg, Boet Fick, Ilhaam Groenewald, Mputumi Damani, Kuhn, Tobie Titus, Vivian Lottering, Jurie Roux, Boebie Saban and Vanessa Doble – will decide on the national coach.
The ructions around the appointment of Coetzee, when the general counsel pushed for his appointment while the executive committee wanted Erasmus as coach, is the major driving force behind this move.
This will be discussed at the meeting on Friday.
Other items on the agenda include:
. Saru’s budget approval;
. A recommendation for a new Currie Cup format for 2017 of six premier league and nine first league teams;
. Saru wants private investors to own up to a 74% share of unions
