Rugby's Puppet Masters : The Secret World of SA Rugby Agents

Welcome back to the Rugby Rundown, our weekly news podcast with Jan de Koonen. Very experienced rugby journalist, more than 40 years and plugged into rugby as anything. And last week's episode where we talked about whether Rossi is sitting behind Ruan's departure to Japan, shot the lights out. So thank you for watching that. Jan, it also did very well on your channel.

Yes, indeed, Envia. It was quite a popular podcast. and as usual, you know, when we chat, we chat in depth and we've got a bit of insight that your average Joe doesn't have, which helps, you know, that's what makes a podcast so nice and that's why I enjoy doing this. So that's actually something I wanted to talk to you about, the fact that you're so experienced, you know, like you've got insight that most of us don't have. I want to talk to you about agents, rugby agents in general.

And it surprised me, firstly, how powerful agents are in the South African rugby landscape. Just tell me what they are, what they do. and how it works so the agents themselves there's a variety there's some really good agents some really bad agents um and at the moment you've got the the guys that are the solo i don't know if it's been with they've got a company but you know it's it's a guy that broke guys that breaks away from another agency so there's agencies so some of the more established agents will have agencies and they'll have a lot of agents work for them so i'm going to give anybody free advertising or we probably are yeah so so the the reality is these guys have got an agency and different agents who look after players so uh let's take an example and i know i've had some feedback from some agents who get very upset with me or you know why do we give rock nation so much publicity because rock nation looks after the players in a very professional manner so they they will take a player let's let's start with Sia this is where it all started Roc Nation and Sia so they took Sia and Sia gets the best treatment he he gets global exposure you know he gets flown to America to to see uh NBL and NBA matches and socialize and and his faces there so they build his brand he gets uh he goes to Liverpool and watches matches there when Klopp was still there he's a good friend of Klopp so he would would sit there in a box and people would know who's here so they help him build his brand but they also help him build a life beyond rugby so so they don't just sit there and take their money and like some agents do flip players from one unit because the more they flip the more commission they get you know the higher the salary the more commission they get so some agents look after the players and some agents don't they they will just flip players and move them around because they can get more money so when i say there's some good agents and there's some bad agents i don't mean the people they bad people or bad persons they just i don't think they look after the players as well as they should so when people start complaining about rock nation and that they only take specific players they take players that they know it's got a good potential a good profile and will become a global star because they can take them to the global market. So they can take Cheson Colby and market him all over the place. Most Africans will know Cheson for a specific cell phone ad and a few other things.

Whereas Cheson Colby has got his own company that he runs that's going to serve him after rugby. Same with SIA. they've got a company and they've been busy set up to run a company after you know so there's life after so i think to quote michael jormach the the rock nation's boss uh to quote him uh he says they set them up so that he can do what he wants to do after rugby not what he has to do and that's like me and you you know uh maybe our pension funds are not so like and we have to carry on working because we have to do what we want what we have to do we do what we have to do because we still need an income whereas those guys when they're done with rugby they will have a steady income they will have and that's what rock nation does different so they they in my view on another level so something interesting i want to share with you we will soon have our first black player agent in South Africa. A gentleman called Tamsankwa Mekwana, or commonly referred to as Mr. T, is a very good friend of SIA.

Now, he's applied to become a player agent. Up till now, and this will shock people, up till now, there's not a single black player agent in South Africa. He's going to be the first one. And why? he's a recruitment agent for Roc Nation.

Up till now he couldn't handle the players himself. He had to go recruit players. If he sees Pete they just signed as in Pete, Roc Nation. So he brings him on board recruits him but then he has to hand him over to an agent who's a registered qualified agent. He's now going to sit so he can on behalf of Roc Nation he can handle that play.

So if he gets a young scrum off or a fly off or a prop, he can then manage that player himself as an agent. So I think that's what the Roc Nation does better. And a lot of people will say, oh, they only pick. Yeah, of course they pick. Some agents just take whatever they can get because maybe they're not as high profile.

Maybe they've not been in the game as long as some of these guys. Roc Nation comes from a very different background. They've been involved in America. they know what marketing in sport is like they know how to manage it globally and how to run agency globally and i think that's where a lot of asians rather than feeling sour about how much publicity rock nation gets or how much what rock nation does rather take a leaf out of their book grow your agency uh instead of whining to us and moaning to us because we give rock nation publicity grow your agency sell your agency sell your players like rock nation does you know and i think that's the big difference so when i say there's good agents and there's bad agents or let's say there's good agents and not so good agents that's the differences because some only look after their players during their player career and after that it's up to the player what they do and and there's some classic classic cases of players who are bankrupt after they stop playing i mean players they have to go start playing overseas just to get a pension fund and there's classic cases of that as well so i think the really good agents will make sure that the player is set for life after rugby and the other agents may not be doing that and the player will be left to his own devices after he stopped playing the rugby you mentioned something that caught my my attention it's factory city applied to be an agent is there some sort of a regulatory framework here or do they have to be registered do they have to have certain qualifications you know SA rugby makes us as journalists jump through hoops to be credited does the same apply to an agent or can i become an agent tomorrow get a couple of players and start phoning around and see if i can secure them a contract now you have to be an interested agent so yes there is a process that has to be followed so you have to sit the exam and all sorts of stuff so it's not just a simple case of you you start becoming an agent it used to be like that but it's now far better regulated because there used to be some really rogue stuff out there and players got burned badly by some agents. I don't want to go into that too much or give examples, but there's well-documented cases of players being burned by agents.

So now that it's regulated and you have to apply to SORA to be a registered or an agent, and you have to go through the process and you have to sit for an exam. And then if you qualify, and then you get your license, and then you can start executing your duties as an agent, as a qualified agent. You mentioned now the first black agent, but I spoke to Monea Havenstein the other day, the first woman agent. And did she have to jump through hoops? Because she bumped into the patriarchy everywhere she turned.

They didn't want the woman as an agent for rugby players, whether they're male or female. There seems to be quite a little bit of an old boys club going there. I don't know if it's an old boys club, but it certainly a setup that does not or did not favour women And I think that slowly changing It like women rugby I mean I might not enjoy women rugby because i don think the skill levels are high enough or you know i might not enjoy some club rugby because i don think the skill levels are high enough so but that my choice you know if i don't want to watch but they still have the right to compete so somebody needs to look after the women as well and i don't think there's enough agents looking after women again you will find that only the most high profile female players are looked after by agents because agents can make money from them but your average slot player or your provincial player and we now got this uh women's uh super league in south africa you know those players there's a hundred odd players that it's got no agents they can know you know what do they do they go to the union and and offer themselves so of that probably about 10 of them has got agents and and the rest are you know so that's why you need female agents to start looking after those players and make sure you know i know we got my players so so my players will look after the players and they sign uh contracts and look after the contracts of the players but the agent still needs to market the players still needs to take player x to another union or take a play x overseas so i mean there's very few of our women play that go play compared to the men it's a drop in the ocean of the number of african women player players that go overseas so you need agents to to market these plays and look after also look after them so remember these women don't earn as much money as the men because the profile there's not as much sponsorship there's not as much uh television you know now it's a bit better now that we've reached the quarterfinals of the world cup so there's a bit more interest in women's rugby in south africa but you can look at the uh provincial competitions uh nobody goes and watches it. There's still, and somebody needs to market that. And you want to market the players, the female players, an agent needs to go do that.

And that's where your really good agents come and they can market these players and put them out there, get them some incomes, let them build up a portfolio of some sorts and set them up for life after rugby. And that's a big challenge for female agents is to actually find a career path for these women other than just playing rugby. yeah that's a good point we actually had an interview with libby jansson last night and what an interesting purchase is and we're going to be doing our best to promote some women's rugby i don't necessarily agree with you about the quality of rugby yes i know it's not maybe right up there but it's getting there you know under them's ways it's coming along and it leaps and bounds so i'm looking forward to see where that can end up so watch out for that video with libby i'm going to put the link up on the screen here what a character i was so impressed by her so sorry i got a bit like uh digressed there but but she was so impressive anyway i wanted to talk to you about how powerful these agents are and um i've recently seen this in action i spoke to somebody at a rugby organization you got some bad news and not 10 minutes later the whatsapp started flowing about possible replacements and possible deals being made you talk about an old boys club but there seems to be a network of interconnected individuals here I mean, are the players leaking information? How does it work? How do the agents become aware of things?

How do they know when to offer a player? How does that work? Yeah, I'm sure that there is a network of agents. And part of that is that are they connected to my players or are they connected to Saru? Or, you know, that I'm not quite sure.

But there are a network of agents. And they do speak. I mean, I speak to some of them. And they're very friendly. and I get on with them very well.

So, because I respect them because it's their career path and, you know, they got a job to do. But there is definitely a case and I think to some extent there's some naughty players that will definitely filter information through to agents who then pass that on to ever necessary. You know, so if you know player X is looking for a move, you pass it on to his agent, you know what, there's a gap at the Lions or maybe there's a gap at the Pumas or, you know. Yeah, so, or the Sharks, you know. Listen, the Sharks are losing a scrum off, you know.

Maybe the Sharks need a, I mean, we know that Grant Williams is going to Japan at the end of the season. So I'm sure the Sharks are getting quite a few calls or WhatsApps from the agents about scrum offs that's in the market. No, even Van Sao is going there, isn't he? From Saracens at the end of the season? Correct, yeah.

But I'm sure they need something a bit more younger. Even for sales, older than Grant Williams. I always thought you were going to say, older than the mountains. There's no mountains in Durbin. That's true.

All right. We talk about the positive side of being an agent, but it's also a negative side. Last year, you and I spoke about the drama at the Storm and Surrounding Ben Jason Dixon. And from what I remember, it was all driven by the agent. I'm not going to mention your names here.

But when your agent stirs up trouble, that causes a bit of an issue for the players as well. I mean, some agents are not welcome at some of the unions, for example. How does that affect the players? It's like anything else. If you get bad advice and the player...

So, in this specific case, there was an opportunity for the player to go somewhere else, but he still had a contract. And the store must put their foot down and they said, no, he's not going. no matter whether you want to buy him out or not he's not gaining and i think he may have gotten some bad advice uh maybe there's a good opportunity for him at the time you know maybe he thought oh gee i'm not i'm going to get many more springboard caps i'm going to go while the you know strike when the iron's hot while the iron's hot so i just think sometimes and and i'm going to refrain from this specific case but sometimes players get bad advice and then they make uh bad calls that's like everything in life you know you get bad advice and somebody says to you no but why don't you do this why don't you do that and then you try it and it's and it doesn't work you know uh so i i maybe i want to go into radio and well i want to go into television and suddenly i appear before a camera and i don't look good in front of the camera you know i look like a old prune or something you've got a face for radio exactly i've got a face for radio and yeah i sit in front of a camera uh but the reality is uh if somebody gives you advice and you follow it and it doesn't work out it's my bad you know because i followed your advice uh another person say no you've got a good writing style why don't you write a book and then i'll say uh yes i need to find the time you know you know just do it you know and then you start doing it and i've done a book and i and it didn't go as well the book itself went well but it wasn't a financial success and in south africa books are very seldom financial success, especially sports books. So, you know, that's how you can burn your finger. That's bad advice.

Not necessarily bad advice, but you think somebody gives you an idea and you think it's a good idea, you follow it and then you burn your fingers or you struggle. Then somebody else comes along and you think that's a good idea. And then the publisher will say to you, no, books don't sell anymore, which is right, you know, everything is electronic. So the same thing happens to players. They get advice.

somebody says to him listen this club wants you you know you can go to japan and earn a bucket load of money but you've got two years left in your contract what are we going to do and then you try and find something in your contract and this is what happened something in the contract we take things a loophole and try and get the player out of the contract and say this is wrong with the contract or this is what we can do and it didn't work in this case it didn't work and the players is going to stay there until his contract runs out but what is what is it that achieved is that it's got the unions back up and it's got certain officials back up and the people who control the purse strings are the people who's going to put their foot down and you've got their backs up and now it can lead to animosity between administration and the player and the issue is yeah if you're speaking to the wrong administrators you're speaking to maybe upset the coach or you maybe upset you director of rugby that will stay the agent the agent will always be unpopular and Like he directly said, some agents are not welcome at Ellis Park. Some agents are not welcome in Durban. And some agent has got very limited access at Losters, you know. So, yeah, some agents are running out of places to find players to take overseas. So how does that work now?

You know, my agent has now suddenly become a persona non-grata, which means it limits my options. I mean, are they contractually bound? I mean how can I get out of it as a matter of interest Find yourself another agent If your agent is not delivering you say to him listen I done with the stormers I want to go somewhere else And your agent can't find you at club. Then you say to him, listen, let's call this a day. I don't think you're there.

So the contract that the player signs, that's the other spin-off. So the agent is also signed contracts with the player. So you, my agent, I signed a contract with you. And that contract says, I'm going to stay with you for five years. and I'm not allowed to do anything without your say so.

So I can't go speak to Cape Talk. I can't go speak to 702. I only got to speak to rugby unfiltered because that's where you get your money. So the agent then controls the guy. So that contract between the agent and the player is one aspect.

Then the contract with the relationship between the agent and the unions is another aspect. And that's also a very sensitive subject. and it's a tricky maze to manage. And now you upset people overseas because you promised them this player and suddenly they don't like you because you made promises that didn't come true. Yeah, you know, you just mentioned that Rock Nation, for example, plans for rugby players' career after their playing days are over.

But in many respects, rugby players are very good rugby players but not very good business people or they might be a little naive sometimes and they listen to the advice of what they thought they think should be a person knowing better, like an agent. And then they don't. Ben Jason's case, he's the one carrying the can for that kind of a thing. I don't know. It sounds a bit of a problem to me.

Here's an interesting lesson. I was speaking to James Dalton at the moment. I'm trying to get him on a podcast. We still haven't found a moment. But in between, we sat down for a coffee and we chatted, you know, so we chatted about what he's, remember they were the 95 team, were the guys who introduced, I mean, there was a whole fight with Louis Leite, the late Dr.

Louis Leite, about the money and contracts and, you know, how much they will get, what bonuses they will get. There was a whole fight with the team. And he said to me, the one player who we all know, Skobis Visser, who's doing very well for him. And he's got this whole massive brand that is building up Wisniew coffees and that. Well, it's now restaurants.

It's not even just coffees anymore. You know, you can see that everywhere around the country, you know, and he's done very well for himself. So James said to me, Kubis did well because he started that while he was still playing. So that's what Rotten Nation does. They help the players to set those kind of things up.

So Kubis' visit didn't wait until he was finished and then took his final paycheck and started a business. He started a business with the money that he earned while he was playing it might not have been a lot of money back then because it was theoretically still amateur but he used his money well and that was a very clever move now that's the thing is also the players need to be managed in such a way and mentored in such a way by agents or agencies not necessarily just an agent but agencies that they know that while you're playing you're going to start building your future for for post rugby and that's a very big subject and i think a lot of players fall short there that's what i said at the beginning you know some of these agent agents and not all of them but there are a small section or a small pocket of agents who do this they're quite happy to just move the players around and make their money like that because players are expendable you know if one player is retired you go fetches and another young player comes through you know you go to a cave and we can see there's a really nice player you speak to him and new agents or young agents that come on the scene need to understand first of all their behavior in public their behavior towards players and they also got to understand that they need to look after the players from day one so you know if i want to sign player z from school x and i i have to look after this place i have to make sure that he knows that if he gets injured a factor is a catastrophic injury and there are cases of this we played that catastrophic injuries they were very talented playing under age group provincial rugby and they look set for great things catastrophic injury career ending that player then needs to have something so you need to get the players first of all you need to make sure that your player either studies or get a trade so that if something happens then he's got something to fall back on and that's a that's one of the big challenges for for agents you know you can't just say uh i'm going to move the player to this and we're going to make lots of money and say to the player this is how we can those agents need to act as proper mentors for these for these players especially from a young age your more senior players will know and they'll find a well-established agent and they will have a relationship but some players get stuck with agents that are not the greatest and that creates a problem for the player down the line talking about leaks um you know i was watching the bulls playing against the dragons the other night and i saw tini's the beer in action i mean that guy is a machine and he was well on his way to come back to the bulls and then it fell through because apparently from what i've been hearing is that it was leaked too soon um why would i just leak this kind of information or they're trying to prevent something from happening some other agent maybe leaking it because the bulls were like i said they needed a backup fly off with Paul Arta being a springboard hanging on springboard duty the cupboard being a little bit bare and then it fell through now that Kervin Bosch has now apparently been signed finally signed but we've known about it for weeks why do those leaks happen? what's the thinking behind it? agents try and increase their players profile that's happened I'm not saying it happened in this case and Tien is the biggest case but the leaked happened too soon and you can't blame the media so yeah I've got to put my journalist had done if you get a good story 10 is the beer is going to the bulls it's a good story big story you know you can trust the agent or the person that's leaking it to you you're going to write that you're not going to blow your cover you're not going to reveal your source because you burn your source once you burn all your sources i can guarantee so you protect your source but you're still going to write the story because you know that if somebody has spoken to you somebody's spoken to somebody else as well so now now you're in a race to you know when is the right time you know do i write it tomorrow do i hold it hold on to friday and then thursday somebody writes it and then you said you had a story for you were holding on because somebody asked you to hold on and somebody else jumped again so i'm not saying it's what happened here but this has happened and it will happen in the future as well is that as a journalist when you get a story you're most likely to write it unless you've got a relationship and you trust the guy and you know that it's not going to go anywhere else. Well, that leaves it open to manipulation.

I've got a fly-off that I want the Bulls to sign. So I know here that they want to sign TNUS to be a side leak it so that those negotiations go awry so that now my player can be in line for a contract. I'm saying it's a bit cynical maybe, but it's a possibility. It's possible. But the converse could also be possible.

You leak it because you want to know your fly-off's current club is busy talking to him and suddenly they read that he's about to sign for the Bulls and then hold on a second his value goes up so it cut both ways and again I want to be clear I'm not saying this is what happened in Tinnis De Beers case but Tinnis De Beers is a classic case of where information gets up into the public domain it gets into the media too early and it can damage the players' chances of moving back to South Africa. Yeah, however, it got out. And please don't blame the journalists that did it because he's doing his job. Of course it is. That's what you get paid to do.

No, of course, I know. And I mean, we all know who I'm talking about. And if he doesn't write it, then we don't believe it. Just the way it is. Let's just talk about some player movements briefly while we add it.

You mentioned Grant Williams now confirmed going to Japan. and we're not sure where he's going, but he's now going definitely. Even Fonseil, we mentioned earlier, from Saracens being lined up to replace him. What is the relationship between the Sharks and Saracens? There is a link there.

Just explain that to me a bit. The cheaters have got that with a Welsh club i think they got it with japan uh toyota through toyota so these cross hemisphere cross country uh relationship do exist so if if the saracens has got a couple of players who's not getting much game time a couple academy players that they need to get some game time they know that the sharks have got a junior team or under 20 team so these guys can can register in south africa and play for get some under 23 game time or so that cross pollination exists uh saracen needs needs a good scrum off or that you know or they need it need a good wing or a good fly off and there's a spare fly floating around in durban that player will be saracens will be able to lean on that player so that that's the the reasoning behind it? I know it sounds very simplistic. It's probably a bit more complicated than that. But that's a gist of it.

Just exchange players, have a relationship with each other. And it says, you know, a coach can come across. So, I mean, John Dobson went to France and he spent a week or so with France. And he sits in Toulouse's meetings and he sits in and he sees how they do stats. So, he learns from that he grows from that so it's not just about it's not uh we've got some great secrets you want to see our secrets it's not it's not about that it's about growing the game across the globe and sharing your information uh you can you can always uh hold back what you need you know if you know that you're going to discuss something that's very sensitive then you will say to them listen guys uh we've got a difficult situation here can can you give us 10 minutes and then they'll deal with that but it happens i mean like i said cheetahs have got the the the world i remember the second game went to play there uh genre roof played for us priest some you know some of the sort of an exchange but isn't there some sort of a common shareholding maybe with saracens as well i mean there's a strong syraffin connection with saracens brendan fenter is going to take over there as head coach or director of rugby not sure which one there isn't anything yeah so brendan fener was involved in in the sharks uh at some stage or assistant so brendan fenter is a very curious case just off the cuff i'm sorry i mean he's got his practice in in strand somerset so he's got his practice there and that's his full-time job but he he advises he comes in his advisory capacities you know he helped at western province a little bit um he helps here and there so so he doesn't go there and coach there for months on end he goes across for a couple of weeks and help and give advice and look into the systems so so he doesn't per se coach and i think he was similar at the shops you know he is more advising capacity and then he returns to his practice in the strength and make sure that that grows so that that is the reality of that it's a very different scenario and I think it's that type of exchange.

When a coach goes across or comes from... We've had that Australian coach that helped at the Stormers. He looks at the system, he looks at how the players, as John Dobbs explained, he looks at how the players contest for the ball, but not necessarily just jump. Everybody thinks it's so simplistic. You teach a player to jump and he's suddenly going to go higher than everybody else and the Stormers going to win all the balls that's not what happens what happens is when that player slaps the ball down or what happens post collecting the ball so when that when the ball gets loose on the ground that area around the ball where the two because you can now can't block so now you're going to find another way of protecting yourself so that area around the ball where the two players are going to land or where the player is going to land how do you protect that if the player doesn't control the ball how do you make sure that the opposition doesn't get a quick turnover and your defense is not that's transition yeah brendan is actually going to join sarahson's full-time as director of rugby i checked it now from the start of the next season he's taking over so he's going to england he's not just gonna maybe there's a uh it'd be worth watching some of the press conferences there because they could be interesting to remember that famous one which is that yes yes It was so funny.

He made it as a joke because he saw somebody else in America do it and he thought it was a great idea. And it got him into hot water. Yeah, I can imagine. I was watching it now when I confirmed that appointment. I saw the video come up again as one of those things under his name.

It's interesting. I'll actually put that link up here for people to go have a look at it. It's so funny. Anyway, other notable signings. Kermit Bosch now being confirmed for the Bulls.

Takir Abrams, as far as I know, is definitely coming. Andrew Limberg is coming. any other player movements that you're aware of that might be in the wings or you know some whispers that you're hearing not not significant um there's all sorts of things about uh i know there's there's the confirmation of of the prop that's going to the lines um yeah yeah yeah so so uh but no not significant stuff that i'm aware of i think that the ones that we're aware of is already all in the public domain. Okay, but is there any wings on the store on the shopping list? So that Damien Willemsen can go back to his proper position of either 12 or 15.

They need a wing or two there. No, the problem is that they've got good wings, but they're all injured. Siabella is a really good wing, but he's a shame. I mean, he's had a rough time. I mean, I see very fond of him as a person and as a player, but he's just had a rough time with injuries.

and yeah so it's difficult when your budget first of all when your budget's not as big as say uh sharks or the bulls we're already also uh shrinking their budget because you know the the benefactor don't have empty uh indefinite pockets you know he's going to start looking after himself as well so with a limited budget you can't just go and buy another player you know in the good good old days he used to get that Vigian that cost him a Curry Cup final. You know, you bought him for a season and stuff like that. But you can't, I don't think it's possible to do that anymore because the budget doesn't allow that. So, you know, he's working on a specific budget and it's not free for all. It's not as readily available as people think it is.

I was wondering about that. I mean, in France, Toulouse is effectively a team of test players from many different nations. Why does that not happen in South Africa? Why don't Fijians come play in South Africa? I'm sure they're not going to be that expensive.

I mean, it's exciting to have a couple of Fijian wingers on the cheap, maybe have a nice little working holiday over here in South Africa. Is there any rules against that? Or is it just not viable or feasible? Well, you've got to register for a competition. So to play in a URC, you've got to register to play in a URC.

so then you've got to get the guys you've got to pay him a salary so even if you get him on a junior salary or a small salary it means it's a small salary that you don't have for a local player so you know the obvious answer is go look in the club system maybe there is a wing floating around there somewhere you can use but you also need somebody for that player to come in you need him from the beginning of the season now because of the way things are structured You can't just bring in rookies all the time because you're playing in the UFC, you're playing in the Champions Cup. So it's different competitions. It's almost international competitions. So getting a guy from the Fijians, he might be fast and mighty strong, but will he get homesick very quickly and cause a disruption? So it's not as simple as just saying, let's go get a couple of Fijians and let them play here.

they have to register for the competition and if he's on your books when he's no longer available you have to de-register him and get another player on so it's not as simple as just let's go get a couple of players there goes my millionaire brain wave anyway Jan thank you for that we had a couple of technical challenges today I appreciate your patience and look forward to next week man thank you always a pleasure always welcome Thank you.

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