The University of Pretoria, guilty of fielding too many non bona fide students in 4 games this season, will again get away with a slap on the wrist, and this disgusts Tank Lanning.
The Varsity Cup Exco declared a dispute against Tukkies after a Bona Fide audit revealed that they had transgressed the tournament rule that requires a minimum amount of bona fide students in a match day 23 in 4 games this season.
The relevant rule in terms of number of players is the following:
4.2 At least 18 players of the 23 players on match day must be bona fide registered students at the university for which they are playing to be eligible to play in the Varsity Cup or – Shield
The dispute was scheduled for Monday 11th of March, but was postponed to Thursday the 14th of March 2013. Adv Jannie Lubbe SC, called in as an independent to investigate the matter, found Tukkies guilty of the charge, and advised that the penalty against them be a ‘strong reprimand’.
This result was delivered on Friday evening.
Tukkies and the Varsity Cup Exco agreed that they would have until 13:00 on Sunday to decide whether or not to appeal the finding.
The Varsity Cup Exco and board do believe the sanction from Lubbe to be “Extremely light” given the options available to Lubbe, and were thus very keen to explore the option of appealing the decision.
The rules governing the penalties are the following:
4.12 Where member universities transgress any of the rules laid down in points 4 or 5 a dispute will declared against them and they stand the chance to:
- 4.12.1 Lose all points gained for that match, and/or;
- 4.12.2 Also give full points to the other team, and/or;
- 4.12.3 Also lose 5 league points from the log as a penalty.
As such the Varsity Cup board called in some heavy hitters in the legal space and were prepared to spend any amount of money needed to follow the legal process.
A clause in the Varsity Cup bye Laws says that “Any party that feels prejudiced by the finding and/or penalty imposed upon him, will have a right of appeal against the finding / penalty.”
And these exact words are significant in that they imply that a right to appeal exists only when a penalty is imposed. So after much deliberation, the Appeal’s Committee found that the Varsity Cup do not have a right to appeal in this regard.
They were also advised that it is standard practise in most cases where a dispute is declared that the prosecuting party do not have a right to an appeal.
So Tukkies, because of a loophole in the Varsity Cup constitution, and a weak ruling from Lubbe, will again get away with cheating in the Varsity Cup, and I find that disgusting!
The Varsity Cup motto is INTEGRITY TRUST FRIENDSHIP TRANSPARENCY HONESTY but we are seeing anything but any of that from Tukkies. Having not been able to enforce the rules 12 months ago for the same reason, it is amazing that the Varsity Cup board has not been able to tighten things up so as to prevent this happening again, but Tukkies remain the bad guys here.
They are devaluing the fundamentals of the tournament, and should do the honourable thing by admitting their indiscretion and withdrawing themselves from the tournament.
But there is more chance of me turning anorexic I am afraid …
With Tuks being so obstinate, the only 2 solutions are for this to slide as it did last year, or for the other Varsities to come together and threaten to withdraw from Monday’s games until Tuks admit their transgression and give up the points acquired in those 4 games.
I hate dishonesty. Especially when it is blatantly public and no one does anything about it. I wonder… Did Lubbe study at Tuks?
Question No. 1 – Which is Adv. Lubbe’s alma mater?
Q2. Will anyone really care about this rule now?
Q3. The new name for next year’s tournament will be…? Answers on a gum-guard please and the word Varsity/Student/University may not appear anywhere in the phrase.
Asked the same question … He went to Shimlas, who stand to benefit directly from a penalty to Tuks … So cannot fault that 🙂
VC will probably just tighthen up on no. of students and enforcing that rule … meaning the degree only universities suffer more
Out of interest, were there any players in their Young Guns team that were also not genuine students?
They were found not guilty of transgressing those rules Gunner
Honestly… stop crying and start cheating back. When they next visit don’t let them use the normal visitors change room, but the small little toilet they built for staff in the apartheid days. Let them go and get ready in there.
Same story last year http://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/VarsityCup/Varsity-cheat-claims-cleared-up-20120319
This would not happen if all VC and VC u20 players were bona fide students. They also should not have provincial contracts as most of the Tukkies have with the Bulls. It seems as if some unions are paying these players as full time profesionals while Ikeys and Maties almost have no WP affiliation with regard to VC.
Not good enough Varsity Cup.
This ruling is forcing all the varsites to go the route of throwing huge amounts of money at players just to compete.
It has become a case of who has the resources to buy the best team and that is not what this competition needs. Why don’t all the big Unions now start using the Varsity Cup as a Pre-season tournament for the U/19 and U/21 Currie Cup squads? That way the Unions can get their monies worth from players and get TV time at the same time.
Next question, if Tuks are cheating to win and TV coverage of the VC is aligned with how many wins a Varsity has in the previous years competition, does that mean if Tukkies cheat to win they get their minimum of 5 TV games. Bit unfair!
If this is the case then it does pay to cheat as it impacts the revenue stream of the Varsities.
This is such a crock of crap!
Its a disgrace!
Im but one person but I wont be watching these games anymore.
Johhny, thankfully its not all varsities – one in particular has a lot of financial backing and one manipulates the term bona fide student via a particular academic course. Maties, Shimlas and I would think UCT get very little financial assistance.
@Neil.
I agree with you totally.
I am fully aware of the amount of money that the various varsities put into the varsity cup.
The likes of Wits put in much less than a million a year (squad of 40 players) into their side (and it shows) with the top sides players getting in the region R20k plus a month (some of the top players from the big varsities / unions are on a package of R35k plus a month).
How are the likes of UCT and Wits ever going to compete with that.
The scary thing is the year that UCT won the competition, they put a serious amount of resources into that side and a year later they were playing a relegation match against CUT (Bloemfontein) because those resources were not available anymore.
The bottom line is that the varsity with the money will win the competition (except maybe Maties who have a serious pipeline of talent going through the varsity).
The varsity cup is about money, TV rights, professional players, winning at all costs and the student thing is just some annoying thing on the sideline.