SA Rugby confirms new ‘player welfare’ agreement amid 12-month-long season: ‘It ensures minimum standards’
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South African professional rugby players and employers have agreed a new two-and-a-half-year deal to cover conditions of employment in the sport.
The new agreement, called the South African Rugby Industry Collective Agreement (SARICA), establishes a uniform set of employment regulations and protections for both professional players and their clubs, with South African players split between playing a club season aligned with the Northern Hemisphere window and a Southern Hemisphere Test schedule and the Currie Cup running between July and September.
SARICA has been negotiated between MyPlayers, on behalf of the professional players, SA Rugby and the South African Rugby Employers’ Organisation (SAREO), which represents the unions and franchises.
‘SARICA balances the interests of everyone in the industry’
As part of SARICA, players will now have 12 non-contact weeks in a contract year. Of those 12, five are designated annual leave, and three must be taken in an uninterrupted block.
The remaining seven non-contact weeks may be made up of additional annual leave, bye weeks, injury rehabilitation, travel periods or parental leave.
On top of this, players will also have access to Comprehensive medical scheme benefits, income replacement insurance for disability and catastrophic injury, concussion and head injury management provisions, rest periods and player workload management, a contracting model regarding player numbers and team salary caps and annual leave and off-season protections.
Commenting on SARICA, Ettienne de Lange, chairperson of SAREO, said: “SARICA is the foundation on which all rugby players are contracted.
“It ensures minimum standards of remuneration and employment for professional players, both men and women and is the default document for any player entering the profession.
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“It regulates all areas of professional play from the Springboks down to age group teams and development players at unions.”
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Eugene Henning, CEO of MyPlayers, added: “Load management – of training and playing – is one of the cornerstones of player welfare and particularly complex in a South African rugby season that runs for 12 months.
“SARICA reflects that with regulations that are founded on World Rugby’s identification that individualised load management is the ‘gold standard’ approach to player welfare and recommends its implementation where possible.
“The employers ensure we can meticulously measure the load in training and playing of all players, as well as the provisions of non-contact weeks.
“Professional rugby is played in South Africa every month of the year. However, thanks to the excellent and professional work of the employers’ high-performance departments, the load profile of our players is frequently lower than that of players in other countries with a uniform close season.
“We have learned how best to manage the 12-month season and have updated the regulations in this agreement to provide the best possible outcome for players, against the framework of the South African playing calendar.”
Also commenting, Rian Oberholzer, CEO of SA Rugby, said: “SARICA balances the interests of everyone in the industry.
“It sets minimum employment standards, setting remuneration and benefits standards, ensuring player welfare to ensure that professional rugby in South Africa is run consistently and fairly.”