FORMER SPRINGBOK COACH Peter de Villiers has slammed the South African Rugby Union after they revealed plans to re-introduce a racial quota system for provincial sides.
The SARU are imposing the quotas on the 14 teams that will compete in the Currie Cup competition next season. Seven players in each 22-man squad must be non-white. Five of those players must then be chosen in the team’s starting XV.
The union’s president, Oegan Hoskins said the quotas, brought in for the first time in 14 seasons, will provide greater playing opportunities for emerging, and black, players.
He said, “The intended outcome is an increased pool of black talent from which Currie Cup and Super Rugby coaches can select and – in due course – more options for the Springbok coach.”
De Villiers, however, has railed against the idea that ethnic quotas are needed for black players to advance. The coach, who led South Africa for three years and defeated Ian McGeechan’s Lions in 2009, told the BBC that it was the worst decision the union could make. De Villiers declared:
I don’t think the SARU understands its purpose in life. Everybody will believe that these players will be picked because people are looking out for them.”
There are nine black players in the South African squad for the 2013 Rugby Championship but only three have made the 23-man squad for this weekend’s opener against Argentina.
De Villiers stood down from his national coaching role after a quarter final exit at the 2011 World Cup. “It’s not the first time they have tried to put these things in place and they have never worked,” he added.
“It will only ever work if there is a transformation period in people’s hearts. If there isn’t I think they are wasting their time.”
