South Africa's rugby union bigshots are clinging to the past--and their jobs--in the face of strong opposition

By PETER HAWTHORNE /CAPE TOWN

s anyone who follows rugby football knows, the game in South Africa is hard-fought and tough, especially at the national level, where the Springboks showcase the playing skills and passion of the Afrikaner giants who dominate the sport. During the apartheid era it was the whites-only Springboks, probably more than any other South African institution, who came to symbolize the uncompromising stance of the white minority, and it was the Springboks too who bore the brunt of international opprobrium when they toured abroad.

Yet it was through rugby--especially the triumph of the Springboks on their home ground in the 1995 Rugby World Cup--that South Africans finally found a potent vehicle for reconciliation. After the Springboks defeated New Zealand in the World Cup final, South Africa's blacks cheered where once they would have jeered, and a jubilant Nelson Mandela even donned one of the green and gold Springbok jerseys so symbolic of white supremacy. Standing alongside Mandela and sharing the glory of the moment was the president of the South African Rugby Football Union, Louis Luyt, who as far back as 1988 stunned apartheid's apparatchiks in Pretoria by slipping over the border to Harare, Zimbabwe, to talk with the then outlawed African National Congress about racial reforms in South African sport.

Three years later, however, SARFU has clashed head-on with the new order of Nelson Mandela, and South African rugby is once again in danger of being consigned to the doghouse. The confrontation threatens to bring back boycotts reminiscent of the apartheid era and even the banishment of the famous Springbok emblem. Caught firmly in the fast-developing maul is Luyt (pronounced late), whose bruising management style and confrontational tactics are rapidly transforming him from hero to villain.

A burly, aggressive Afrikaner industrialist who made his first million selling fertilizer, Luyt has done much for the game of rugby in South Africa. He has turned his struggling local provincial club, Transvaal--now the Gauteng Lions--and its home ground, Ellis Park, into a massive business empire listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. In 1996 he was also instrumental in securing for SARFU a $550 million-dollar, 10-year TV contract with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

But Luyt is no longer regarded as the enlightened reformist of South African rugby. His bullying nature and belligerent attitude to those who question his all-powerful position, business interests and family connections--his son-in-law is SARFU's chief executive officer; his son manager of the Ellis Park complex--have alienated much of the rugby establishment. Rugby writers, players and officials have criticized the apparent lack of transparency in SARFU's affairs, and there have been accusations from black administrators that Luyt's business interests have taken precedence over moves to bring more black players into a sport that is still predominantly white.

Luyt ignored warnings that the government might appoint a commission of inquiry into the management of South African rugby. When such a commission was announced, SARFU not only contested its validity before the Supreme Court but caused public outrage by forcing President Mandela to appear to defend his action.

Even if they are successful in court, Luyt and SARFU's board members are not off the hook. They still face a demand by the government-supported National Sports Council that they resign for bringing the sport into disrepute. Last week the N.S.C. gave Luyt and the rest of the SARFU executive until May 7 to step down. If they do not, says N.S.C. president Mluleki George, the council will suspend SARFU's membership, call for boycotts and the cancellation of international fixtures, and deny the national rugby side the use of the Springbok emblem. For their part, South African professional rugby players are threatening to sue the N.S.C. if their livelihood suffers through boycotts.

Though it is questionable how far the N.S.C. can go in imposing a boycott on a national team, a number of sponsors who have major funding deals in South African rugby are already beginning to fret. "Rugby's administrators have to accept the seriousness of the matter," says Russell Macmillan, chief executive of M-Net, the TV station that has broadcast rights to international games. "The situation could go out of control and the sport can only be the loser."

If the situation deteriorates, it will do so at a time, ironically, when rugby in South Africa is becoming more integrated than ever before. Many blacks are playing in previously all-white club teams, and while in 1992 there was only one black in a South African schools touring rugby team--an under-18 side nationally selected from all schools--this year half the squad is black.

South Africans are aware that there is more at stake than the sport. Rugby, which once divided the races, now has the power to unite them. The problems of reconciliation on the rugby fields are part of the post-apartheid racial adjustment that many blacks feel is not going fast enough.