Sport Industry Group

Hoskins blames cities for empty World Cup stadia- 18 Aug 2010 00:00:00

Oregan Hoskins, the president of the South Africa Rugby Union (SARU), has blamed a lack of communication on the part of the city councils of Durban and Cape Town as the reason why no deals have been struck for rugby teams to use World Cup stadia post-tournament.

Speaking to a Parliamentary portfolio committee on sport, Hoskins stated: ‘We now have a situation where in particular Cape Town and Durban are posing a major challenge.

‘In 2007, before the new stadiums were built, I wrote to the minister of sport and said I foresaw major problems coming and I asked for the intervention of the ministry.

‘Unfortunately, we were all taken up by the Soccer World Cup and in the hype we forgot we should have been talking to each other.’

The operators of South Africa's new stadia have been desperate to bring rugby unions on board to fill seats and bring in income.

A presentation from the City of Cape Town to the committee estimated that it would cost R46.5m to maintain the city's new stadium each year. Durban too will have to fork out millions in maintenance costs.

Both cities are hoping to move their provincial rugby teams to the stadia and to host international test matches.

‘What we are discussing today should have been discussed before we built the stadiums,’ Hoskins said.

‘It is tragic for us as a nation that we have to act in reverse.’

Hoskins said there were no discussions between the city of Durban and rugby authorities before the stadium was built.

The Sharks, he said, were going to have ‘a massive problem’ moving over to the R3bn Moses Mabhida stadium because of the configuration of its suites.

‘There was no discussion, when that stadium was built, with rugby and it could have solved a lot of problems. If the suites were configured in a different way that would have solved so many problems.

‘In the rugby stadium they have about 400 suites. In the soccer stadium they have about a quarter of that.’

He said the issues could not be left to two parties - The Sharks and The City of Durban - to solve.

‘We can't allow this issue to be left to those two parties. They owe it to us that this matter must be resolved by greater participation. As we sit here today, remember my words, this is going to hit a dead end.’

Moving onto the problems surrounding Cape Town, Hoskins said the situation in the city was ‘out of hand’.

‘There has been a total breakdown around this issue of the new stadium. It is not necessary it should happen that way.’

He said Western Province Rugby and Sail StadeFrance, the operators of Cape Town Stadium, were ‘talking past each other’ and ‘talking in the media’ about whether rugby would in the future move from Newlands to the new stadium.

‘It goes on and on. It just gets out of hand. Unless we contain it and channel our common energies in one direction, we are going to be the laughing stock of everyone.’

Hoskins added that SA Rugby was looking at a new model to host test matches around the country

‘We want to use the new stadiums. We want to take the game to the people, but these two issues are going to stand in our way in a big way. The parties must take huge blame for the situation we are in.’