Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool's statement that rugby star Luke Watson is a "black player" overshadows a billionaire rugby club created by two of his uncles, Valens and Ronnie Watson. Luke, captain of Cape Town's Stormers, is son of Dan "Cheeky" Watson, erstwhile rugby star, and anti-apartheid activist who refused to play in the Springbok team,
As Rasool put it, Cheeky Watson "chose to play his rugby on the dusty pot-holed fields of the Eastern Cape's townships, Luke comes from a historically disadvantaged community". Last week, Luke Watson found himself at the centre of huge controversy after South African Rugby Union Head, Oregan Hoskins, over-ruled Springbok coach Jake White and included Luke Watson on a list of 45 players invited to a Springbok training camp this week
The row, which has torn at the nation's very fabric, overlooks the successes of one of the most spectacularly successful black economic empowerment (BEE) entities in the country, little-known Vulisango. Today, at current market prices, Vulisango's stake in an entity called Jaganda, which holds shares in JSE-listed Simmer & Jack, is worth R1,4bn.
The shareholders in Vulisango include Valens Watson, and retired rugby players Archie Mkele and Zola Yeye, along with a number of stalwarts, some of who also have Eastern Cape connections, viz, Gibson Njenje, Siviwe Mapisa, Margaret Ndlovu, Baba Njenje, Nozuko Pikoli, and Ayanda Sisulu.
Yeye, Springbok team manager, found himself in the middle of the Luke Watson controversy, when yesterday Yeye refuted media reports that White had been instructed not to talk to the media against his will.
The Luke Watson controversy is in good company, but on a different timeframe. Jaganda's origins can be traced back to a rights issue by Simmer & Jack in early 2005, when the late Brett Kebble injected cash into Simmer & Jack. In classic Kebble fashion, loans owed by Simmer & Jack to a number of Kebble entities were converted into new Simmer & Jack shares vended into Jaganda, which then issued preference shares to Kebble's key company, JCI.
Seen another way, Simmer & Jack was allowed to effectively kill its debt by indirectly issuing preference shares in Jaganda to JCI. The actual shares in Jaganda were then held 51% by Vulisango, with the balance of 49% held by the Simmer & Jack "management grouping", Gordon Miller, Roger Kebble, Graham Wanblad, John Berry and Ronnie Watson, to the tune of 9,8% each. Terrible squabbling subsequently broke out between the two camps, and Ronnie Watson crossed to the Vulisango camp, where his brother Valens already was.
On May 18 2006, the internecine battle was finally resolved when the management shareholders declared that they would sell their 49% interest in Jaganda in exchange for up to 100m Simmers shares, currently worth just over R700m. There is, of course, a fourth Watson brother, Gavin, but he has spent his time pursuing other interesting business propositions.
Things have been quiet at Simmer & Jack, a gold miner and uranium hopeful, for many months. But the noise on the rugby front appears to have a long way to go. It has been noted that White did not select Luke Watson for the Springbok tour, in November last year, preferring Solly Tyibilika, a real black player. .
Donald Lee, spokesperson on sport and recreation for the Democratic Alliance, the official opposition, says that the issue is no longer about race - "that is just a smokescreen. As with every other sphere in which the ANC has imposed its political programme of transformation, the issue is now about how connected you are to the ANC. It is simply disgusting".
Lee argues strenuously that Luke Watson is a player of great talent. "He has the ANC to thank for tainting his career with the ruling party's political agenda, something that will no doubt now plague him for the rest of his professional career as a rugby player".
