Paul Delport has slammed SA Rugby for failing to invest in its women’s programme.
The former Blitzbok resigned as Springbok Women’s Sevens coach after the Sevens World Cup in Cape Town, although SA Rugby only made the official announcement on Wednesday.
“It was pretty simple for me. There were 16 teams at the Women’s Sevens Rugby World Cup. There are 13 teams that are full-time professional. There are three of us who aren’t. That’s us [South Africa], Madagascar and Colombia and we finished 14th, 15th and 16th,” Delport told Daily Maverick.
“It’s pretty easy. I don’t need to explain this to anyone and the people at SA Rugby won’t listen.
“I’m not willing to work for people who don’t care about our women’s sevens programme.
“They’re just unwilling to invest. I don’t understand. Women’s rugby is where it is at the moment, where all the growth can happen. And we don’t want to invest, which doesn’t make any sense.
“Apparently there’s a sevens programme for next year as well as going forward that I wasn’t privy to and that I wasn’t consulted on,” Delport added. “I’ve been asking for the same thing for five years and I still got nothing that I’ve asked for.”
Delport said he had been forced to lie to his players about SA Rugby investing in women’s rugby.
“[SA Rugby] don’t give a s**t. I’m just resigning because I can no longer peddle a lie to talented young women.
“I’ve got these women asking me, ‘Paulie, what should I do? Should I sign here or should I go overseas?’
“I don’t think it’s fair for a national coach to be telling players they shouldn’t sign here because there’s nothing going on. Unfortunately, that’s the truth.
“We don’t have enough athletic women playing sevens and there’s an unwillingness to invest. If we want to do it properly we need to go and find proper athletes, but we also need to make it worthwhile for these talented young women. We can’t ask them to do things for free.
“We’re just falling further and further behind the rest of the world.”
