No fans at stadiums but all Lions tour games will be played, says SA Rugby

SA Rugby president Mark Alexander has accepted there will be no fans at stadiums for the British and Irish Lions series but is confident the Covid-19 protocols in place will allow all the scheduled games to go ahead.

The Lions, who will face the Springboks in three Tests from July 24, have arrived in SA which is gripped by a third wave of Covid-19 infections, leading to tightened restrictions imposed by the government, including a 9pm curfew.

The country, the worst-hit in Africa by recorded cases and deaths, reported almost 18,000 new cases on Saturday, approaching the peak of daily infections in a second wave in January.

The Springboks reported three positive Covid-19 cases in their camp on Sunday, though scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies was cleared after a second test. These called the fate of the tour into question but Alexander told Sport24 SA Rugby was moving forward.

“I don’t see things drastically changing overnight,” he said. “We have to make peace with the fact that there won’t be spectators, but the tour will go on and we’ll have all the games, even the provincial ones.”

The Springboks have not played a Test since winning the Rugby World Cup in November 2019 and the resulting loss of revenue has forced SA Rugby to shave R1.2bn off its budget for 2020.

Alexander said had the Lions series been cancelled and had the Springboks gone through another year without playing a Test, it could have spelled the end of professional rugby in SA.

“If we did not play rugby this year, we would have closed our doors,” he said. “SA rugby depends on generating money, of which 99.9% comes from playing. The more you cut back and if we lose money, it has an effect on everybody’s budget all the way down from the Springboks to school rugby.”

The measures put in place by the Lions tour organisers to safeguard players and team officials from Covid-19 will be enough to ensure it goes ahead successfully, Alexander said. “Everybody in the bubble and around this tour has been vaccinated. The athletes’ welfare is of paramount importance,” he said.

“We are living in difficult times, but we’ve spent hundreds of millions on this event and we can’t wish it away. We have to go on and make it work.” 

Reuters