Cape Town – Jurie Roux has stepped down as SA Rugby CEO “in the best interests of the game and the organisation”, president Mark Alexander told IOL Sport on Thursday.
Roux completed a 12-year stint at the local rugby governing body on December 31, and has been rumoured to be on the move to sport investors CVC Capital Partners, who are believed to be in discussions with SA Rugby on a private equity deal.
The 52-year-old Roux’s departure from SA Rugby comes on the back of the controversy around his corruption case with previous employers Stellenbosch University, where he was ordered by an arbitrator to repay R37 million to the university for misappropriating funds while working at their finance department between 2002 and 2010 – while he was also the chairman of the university’s Maties rugby club.
Roux lost an appeal in that regard in December 2021, and he has taken that decision on review to court, which is set to be heard later this month.
SA Rugby took legal advice on the matter and decided to support Roux throughout the case, and handed him a four-year contract extension in 2019 as well.
Alexander reportedly told Parliament’s sports portfolio committee last year March that “you can’t suspend a person for something that happened in a different organisation. There were no allegations against him (Roux) when he was employed”.
“Jurie has finished, he agreed to step down at the end of December. It’s a sad thing, and he stepped down due to things beyond his and our control,” Alexander told IOL Sport.
“He stepped down in the best interests of the game and the organisation.”
Asked if he had tried to keep Roux in the job, Alexander said: “If we could, he wouldn’t have stepped down.”
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Now the race is on to find a successor to Roux. It has been rumoured that Sharks CEO Eduard Coetzee and his Bulls counterpart Edgar Rathbone are in the running for the SA Rugby post – with Rathbone understood to be the favourite in some rugby circles.
Alexander told IOL Sport that an interim CEO would be appointed, and that an announcement will be made once SA Rugby’s office reopens later this month.
IOL Sport