It has been confirmed that the Monnas Centenary Rugby Festival was cancelled early this morning. The statement by the SA Schools Challenge Trust herewith:
UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE SA SCHOOLS CHALLENGE TRUST
HOËRSKOOL MONUMENT EUFEES RUGBY FEES 2021
OFFICIAL STATEMENT
15 April 2021, Pretoria
To all Stakeholders,
We take this opportunity to firstly thank all of those involved in the preparation and facilitation of this tournament which has been in the final stages of planning for some time.
As we are all aware, over the course of the last few months, school sports have suffered a number of setbacks and various stakeholders have had to overcome a number of substantial hurdles with respect to various regulations and directives applicable the return to school sport as well as the return to school rugby.
It was apparent that planning and finalizing this festival during the COVID-19 pandemic was always going to be hard, with the ultimate goal to see school-boy rugby return with a bang and for all schools involved to be given an opportunity to get back on the field, doing what they love, playing rugby. The SA School ChallengeTrust exists for one reason and that is for the development of school level rugby in our country.
In accordance with the Department of BasicEducation regulations and the various guidelines and correspondence issued by the custodians for rugby in South Africa, we were only recently given the green light to return to contact sport and to begin the final preparations for the festival. Infact this festival would have been the first school rugby festival since the suspension of school rugby over a year ago.
It is important that we are transparent with all stakeholders and in this respect, we must inform you that due to some major obstacles experienced over the course of preparations we have been unable to secure a title sponsor for the tournament. This ultimately placed immeasurable pressure on us and the organizers of this event. Regrettably, we have been unable to overcome this hurdle to date, despite fighting to the bitter end.
Together with the limited period with which we had to make final preparations and due to the insurmountable hurdle that we face with respect to financial requirements needed to make the festival happen, SA School Challenge has taken the decision, which was not reached easily, to cancel the upcoming festival hosted at Hoërskool Monument for 2021.
We are aware that this is extremely disappointing news and would like to apologize to everyone involved that may have put time and energy into preparing for this festival that will now no longer take place.
SA Schools Challenge Trust was created for the sole purpose of facilitating and fostering growth in school level rugby and our mission has always been to present opportunities for school-level rugby in South Africa to shine and grow.
We are in the process of negotiating with various stakeholders to try to facilitate some sort of arrangement that would see this festival take place at a later stage, but we cannot confirm now that anything will materialize from this. It is just necessary that we place all cards on the table to display that we are trying everything in our power to correct this situation.
We are hopeful that moving forward under better and less restrictive circumstances and not burdened by the overwhelming pressure that has been caused by COVID-19 that SA School Challenge Trust can implement its manifesto and represent the interest of school-level rugby in South Africa successfully.
Thank you for your consideration of this statement.