Cape Town – Clubs of the Western Province Rugby Football Union (WPRFU) will have the final say if Newlands Rugby Stadium will eventually be sold and who they want as an equity partner for the union.
No other party, not even the current administrator at the union appointed by SA Rugby, will decide on the fate of the union.
The process to sell Newlands received a boost on Friday when the application to declare Newlands Rugby Stadium as a provincial heritage site was rejected by the Inventories, Gradings and Interpretations Committee (IGIC) of Heritage Western Cape (HWC) at a meeting.
The recommendation from the IGIC to not have Newlands Stadium declared as a provincial heritage site must, though, still be ratified by the HWC council. This process will most likely only happen at the next council meeting where more submissions could still be heard. The meeting is scheduled for 7 March 2023.
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The recommendation by the IGIC comes after they scrutinized the public participation results of the application this past week and submissions made by the WPRFU and the heritage applicants led by former Springbok Wynand Claassen during Friday’s virtual meeting.
The public participation process, which the CEO of Heritage Western Cape Michael Janse van Rensburg described as very important, was concluded earlier this month.
The WPRFU had in its bid to have the application rejected asked its clubs, schools, supporters and affiliates to oppose the application to declare Newlands Stadium a provincial heritage site by making submissions to the IGIC. This seems to have worked in the favour of the union.
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The sale of the stadium is currently in limbo after the application was launched and the process to finalise the sale can only be concluded once a decision is made by the HWC council.
But the sale of the stadium will also first have to go through SA Rugby’s executive council and needs to be approved by the governing body.
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Thereafter, it will be tabled to the clubs by the administrator for the final decision.
Some clubs though are opposed to selling Newlands and are fighting to rather have it redeveloped so that the development can be a source of income for the union in perpetuity.
This could be another stumbling block in the process to sell the stadium.
The WPRFU is in major debt though and owes millions to Dream World Investments 401 Proprietary Limited.
Rian Oberholzer, the SA Rugby-appointed administrator, recently said the sale of Newlands Stadium is key to the future sustainability of Western Province Rugby.
@LeightonK
