Union back to square one

What with the claims and counter-claims by the Lions and the Guma group in explaining the real reasons for their break-up, one has no hope in hell of telling who was more justified in calling the whole thing off.

Yet the inescapable fact is that this was a missed opportunity not only for the Lions and Guma, but also for South African rugby.

The Lions have lost the important financial foundation from which winning teams are built. Guma partners Robert Gumede and Ivor Ichikowitz have lost out on the opportunity to present themselves as benevolent benefactors - instead of being the guy with the questionable Home Affairs IT contract and the arms dealer, respectively.

The South Africa Rugby Union, through the possibility of more such deals being shelved, finds itself back to square one.

For years, some provincial unions have been a drain on rugby's finances because most of them are insolvent.

With what threatened to be a super union between the Lions and Guma now dissolved and probably a cautionary tale for similar would-be investors, the burden is firmly back on the union's shoulders.

Ironically, it was probably the union's insistence that their constitutional protocols be observed in the ownership structures of their affiliates that set the ball rolling for the split.

Though it might have been a simple case of due diligence on the union's part, their dampening of the excitement at Ellis Park might have led to the kind of introspection that can only end up in illogical conclusions.

The Lions and Guma's break-up is the kind of mangled wreckage left behind when transformation and tradition collide head-on.

By the looks of it, Guma overestimated the rate of the transformation they could effect, while the Lions somehow thought they could take their money and carry on exactly as they did before.

You don't have to have been a fly on the wall to envisage how bling merchants Gumede and Ichikowitz's style cannot have sat well with the Lions' conservative and largely Afrikaans executive.

A great example was the post-match parties, which were held parallel to each other at Ellis Park. Upstairs was the brandewijn and Coke brigade in the president's suite, and downstairs was a celebrity-packed party hosted by Gumede.

The Lions can't have been happy with Gumede insisting on signing the marquee players himself simply because it wasn't his place to.

Gumede and Ichikowitz have not been enamoured with the Lions insisting that they had the necessary expertise to handle their money, when all they had proven in recent years was that they could not, by driving the company into the red financially.

Talk about Johnny-come-lately meets the old boys' club.

The immediate ramifications of the fallout is that jersey sponsors MTN, who might have signed only because they felt Guma carried the risk of financially supporting the Lions, might be thinking twice about jumping in.

It's a pity, because the South African rugby scene might have benefited from a new structure in which bored tenderpreneurs bought into rugby teams to amuse themselves, à la Roman Abramovich.

The news will also deter the Springbok players the Lions might have signed at the end of the World Cup, thanks to Guma's financial muscle. Now those players will probably choose to end their careers abroad.

And heaven knows where this leaves someone like John Mitchell.

One hopes this will only serve as a cautionary tale of what not to do in this situation, as opposed to an absolute deterrent for other would-be investors.

Either way, one could argue it has set the South African rugby landscape back by a year.