About: http://data.cimple.eu/news-article/94fee689e3347b37fc8a2fa47289f9d1c0fe1e3e73db3c1debb801a4     Goto   Sponge   NotDistinct   Permalink

An Entity of Type : schema:NewsArticle, within Data Space : data.cimple.eu associated with source document(s)

AttributesValues
rdf:type
schema:articleBody
  • Pro14 strugglers the Southern Kings have officially withdrawn from the 2020 edition to avoid incurring further debts, the South African franchise announced Tuesday. The Port Elizabeth team will also not take part in the Currie Cup or any other domestic competition when rugby resumes after a shutdown since March due to the coronavirus pandemic. Kings were bottom of Conference B in the Pro14 -- a competition involving Irish, Italian, Scottish, South African and Welsh sides -- with just one win and 12 losses. Apart from financial problems, the Kings would not have been able to fulfil fixtures with European teams as the South African borders have been closed to combat the COVID-19 outbreak. Kings chairman Andre Rademan said "it would require additional loans or extra shareholder investments of 6.5 million rand ($385,000/325,000 euro)" to continue playing this year. "This may not be a popular decision, but in the current circumstances it is the right decision," he said. "It is obviously very disappointing news for the players and management who, like all rugby professionals, were desperate to resume playing, "However, the board believed that further investment in 2020 with zero commercial return would be reckless in the extreme. "We now have time to consider what is the best way forward for rugby in the Eastern Province (Cape) in this fluid and financially challenging environment." The decision to pull out of the Pro14 and not compete in the Currie Cup is the latest of many blows to eastern Cape rugby. In June, SA Rugby was forced to inherit a 74 percent stake in the Kings after the majority shareholder, GRC, failed to meet financial commitments. "I cannot stress enough how reluctant we are to resume control of the Southern Kings," SA Rugby president Mark Alexander said at the time. SA Rugby incurred losses in 2016 and 2017 before making small profits in the last two years and had to slash 1.2 billion rand off the 2020 budget due to the coronavirus. The Eastern Cape province is the hotbed of black rugby in South Africa with current Springboks captain Siya Kolisi born near Port Elizabeth, the regional hub. Kings were coached this year on a caretaker basis by Robbie Kempton, a former South Africa prop forward. The South African outfit joined the Pro14 in 2017 after being dumped from Super Rugby when the elite southern hemisphere competition was trimmed from 18 teams to 15. dl/lp
schema:headline
  • Cash-strapped Southern Kings quit Pro14, Currie Cup
schema:mentions
schema:author
schema:datePublished
http://data.cimple...sPoliticalLeaning
http://data.cimple...logy#hasSentiment
http://data.cimple...readability_score
http://data.cimple...tology#hasEmotion
Faceted Search & Find service v1.16.115 as of Oct 09 2023


Alternative Linked Data Documents: ODE     Content Formats:   [cxml] [csv]     RDF   [text] [turtle] [ld+json] [rdf+json] [rdf+xml]     ODATA   [atom+xml] [odata+json]     Microdata   [microdata+json] [html]    About   
This material is Open Knowledge   W3C Semantic Web Technology [RDF Data] Valid XHTML + RDFa
OpenLink Virtuoso version 07.20.3238 as of Jul 16 2024, on Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-musl), Single-Server Edition (126 GB total memory, 5 GB memory in use)
Data on this page belongs to its respective rights holders.
Virtuoso Faceted Browser Copyright © 2009-2025 OpenLink Software