Legal Submission to World Rugby:
Apparent breach of the World Rugby Constitution by the South African Rugby Union
Here is a Legal Submission to the World Rugby Council.
It is about the conduct of the South African Rugby Union (SARU) and its apparent breach of the World Rugby Constitution.
The apparent breaches are to do with the SARU's administration of the Mzansi Challenge competition set to start 24 March 2023 in South Africa.
The SARU began by inviting Tel Aviv Heat, a professional rugby union team affiliated with the Israel Rugby Union, to compete in the Competition.
It then withdrew the invitation.
The SARU did not provide substantive reasons for withdrawing the invitation.
Nor did it consult with the Israel Rugby Union before withdrawing it.
And nor did it withdraw any of the invitations of the 10 other teams it had invited.
As set out in the legal submission, the conduct of the SARU appears to breach the World Rugby Constitution.
It seems clear that rule 3 which forbids discrimination in general, and rule 4 which forbids discrimination against the Rugby Union of a country, have been broken.
The Legal Submission says that World Rugby, because of the safeguards in its rules, must investigate the conduct of the SARU, and its apparent breach of the World Rugby Constitution.
It is submitted that once a report has been completed, World Rugby may consider it appropriate to make a Judgment against the SARU.
