The absence of information will always lead to speculation, and whether it is fair or not, you would think that the Lions Rugby Union would have realised this after years of accusations of financial and administrative mismanagement.
The latest episode in the sorry saga is a public mud-slinging contest between the Lions former partners, GUMA Tac and Lions management. The role players; Robert Gumede & Ivor Ichikowitz of GUMA Tac vs. Kevin de Klerk & Lions management.
Last week GUMA Tac announced its withdrawal from the Golden Lions Rugby Union which included taking their R80-million investment for 49.9% control which they had negotiated and announced with great fanfare a couple of months ago.
Currently, a lot of accusations are flying around, all mainly from the GUMA party who is accusing the Lions Rugby Union of ‘resisting change’.
The sorry state of affairs even prompted South African minister of Sport, Fikile Mbalula, to get involved through a statement in which he states that the failed partnership is a massive blow to rugby transformation.
Unfortunately the whole transformation and BEE angle towards the failed partnership are dominating the headlines in the media, whereas the failures of the Lions Rugby Union to adopt a more professional approach as a business should be of greater concern.
If you care to read between the lines, the GUMA group has basically accused the Lions of being happy to receive ‘BEE’ money, but as soon as they insisted in having a say how the money should be used or managed, they were shut out.
“Our walking away from this deal is not a racial issue,” Ichikowitz said in a report on NEWS24.
“It is simply that the Lions is not being run like a company; it is being run like an amateur union.
“Our goal was to change the way the business leg of the Lions was run with specific emphasis on marketing and management, or creating a brand all South Africans can identify with.”
It is a serious allegation, which further fuels the belief that rugby in this country is administered and controlled by a select few who simply has no intention of transforming the game effectively but more importantly, relinquish any powers they currently enjoy within the inner-circles of SA Rugby.
It also suggests that transformation window dressing goes way beyond player representation on the field of play, where unions are quick to invite and partner with BEE companies but refuse to let them actively manage affairs within the organisation.
Most perplexing or even disappointing however, is the Lions refusal to publicly refute any of these claims where the best they could come up with is a statement issued on their website which basically states ‘they are not willing to comment’.
It is any organisation’s right to protect their personal financial affairs, but given the Lions recent history the damage of releasing such information against the damage they currently suffer by closing ranks and keeping quiet may be far greater.
For all we know, the GUMA group could by lying through their teeth, but if we have no way of judging the facts from both parties, it is all we have to go on and believe, and given the ‘trust’, or lack of it, the Lions have enjoyed from the rugby public over the last 5 years, they should know better than to think their word is good enough or should be followed with blind faith.
Lions management is meeting their sponsors on Tuesday to answer their questions and concerns, and one can only hope that following this meeting we will get greater clarity of the situation other than the rather useless public statement released last week.
GUMA TAC can always invest their Millions into the Crusader defeating VRYSTAAAAAAAT Union.
Unfortunately there are many examples of the Lions being run in an amateurish way and had Guma done some real due diligence it would have become evident.
In a February of this year in an address to the GLRU Chairmans Council, de Klerk stated that the Lions intended doing things in a more professional manner from top to bottom, and even mentions King 3 and other statutory obligations that directors of the new enterprise would be accountable to.
However, as Gumede has staed, it did not seem that all parties within the GLRU / Lions Exco’ were 100% behind de Klerk.
Until such time as there is another palace revolution at the Lions / GLRU, I can’t see the full truth becoming public, but I would ask once again:
Have all GLRU / Lions Rugby employees have valid and agreed upon job descriptions?
Do those job descriptions have attainable and measurable Key Performance Areas included in them?
Are employees assessed against those KPA’s on a regular basis, and are the assessments controlled with feedback to employees and corrective actions agreed upon where required?
Does the Union / Company have an Integrated Management Plan?
Etc etc etc.
I suspect that I know the majority of the answers, but have to ask why Guma TAC did not start to implement BASIC COMPANY POLICIES AND PROCEDURES.
Or was it a question of the Laager Mentality on the part of some of the top Lions management whom, immediately on the announcement of the “partnership” went into defensive mode because they were afraid for their future?
Many questions to be answered, but as always a deafening silence from Doornfontein.
@ Loosehead:
nee hel eerder iemand soos christo wiese of johan rupert
@ smallies72:
maar ek dink supersport het reeds n stake in die cheetahs gekoop 2005 of 2004 as ek reg is
You know what the average perception and discussion point of the supporters out there is now about the Lions?
Had the opportunity on the weekend to party with thousands of people at the Innie-Bos festival in Nelspruit, and without fail the reaction from supporters (Lions, Stormers, Bulls, Cheetahs, Sharks) when discussing rugby was that the Lions are bankrupt…
… witout fail, without fail!
Whether that is indeed the case or not can only be cleared up by the Lions themselves and their inability to release an immediate counter statement giving us enough facts to say, well they are indeed not insolvent has this effect that the perception is indeed correct.
Reading between the lines, as Morné suggests leads me to all sorts of conclusions and from my experiences over the years in the Legal Field, one reads relatively correctly…
From this it is clear and has been for 10 years that the Lions are indeed run on a very amaturish basis, on very naiive and haphazard busiess princibles with no proper performance monitoring and performance management footing…. and indeed by fools who think they are bigger and better than they actually are!
How stupid and naiive do you have to be (after burning your fingers repeatedly in the past) not to have signed and sealed Agreements in place before announcing to the world that you have a 49.9% buy-in from a BEE partner. It took the Lions and Guma Group 8 months after the blind media announcement to find out that they cannot agree on terms on the very vital and essential terms of a Shareholders Agreement for the 49.9% buy-in…. that should at the least have been in place before the media announcements!
Now we have the meeting with sponsors on Tuesday, most probably convened to appease MTN and the other sponsors that they made no mistake in hitching their wagons to the Lions in the first place… certainly now sounds like the Lions are now doing the tap dance on a hot stove plate.
Apparently the Lions are due to have to pay back a 30 million Rand loan to ABSA this week as well…
Basically what I want to see is a Balance Sheet, and I bet my bottom dollar that the Lions are indeed factually insolvent on a Sheet like that!
They might have someone who might be willing and able to buy in, in place of Guma Group, and that might just pull them out of being factually insolvent… but what we want to know is where they stand NOW, what the de facto situation is NOW, where Kevin de Klerk and Manie Reyneke and Kevin’s predecessors have plunged the Lions into over the years. What they will do to turn things around is besides the point… in fact it might be better to know the truth so that management can be ousted as soon as possible, for their replacements to handle the recouperation process and to do the needed repair job!
For the Lions management it is clearly not about being unable to agree terms with Guma Group, or about stalling transformation, it is about selfpreservation of a few fools in positions of power within the union. It is about incompetance of the highest order and about hiding facts and figures!
@ grootblousmile:
Spot on GBS.
The attention to failed transformation because of the deal going South is simply covering the real issue at hand here.
6@ Morné:
Rysmier, sorry about the way the Stormers kakked this past Saturday.. commisserations! Fark, how kak was the Stormers scrum!! How kak was everything they attempted to do!!
The Saders were brilliant, they played finals rugga, every minute of the game… they were masters and champion material!
My money will be on the Saders for the Final…
@ grootblousmile:
No worries GBS. The Stormers were nothing short of bloody shocking.
They deserve to have their mental application and attitude questioned, it was the worst 80 minutes I experienced at Newlands in my life.
You know the Saders, and the greatest thing about them?
The absolutely humility they show whether they win or lose. What a pleasure it was to chat to them following the game – they are indeed a special group of players.
5@ grootblousmile:
Just sent you a mail re your statement.
9@ Scrumdown:
Thanks, will read your mail a bit later.
You might be interested in what I’m about to say here…
The approved Financial Statements of the Lions amongst other things, in the Section which deals with the Auditor’s report, apparently has these words embedded… (I will endeavour to obtain the Financials to verify this statement).
“Emphasis of matter
Without qualifying our opinion, we draw attention to note 3 of the report of the executive committee which indicates that the group incurred a loss of R 11.8 million in 2010 (2009: R 8.5 million), and that current liabilities exceed current assets by R 44.2 million (2009: R 26 million). This indicates the existance of a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt on the group’s ability to continue as a going concern.”
Ask any Auditor or Attorney what that means and the answer will be the same… the Lions are indeed FACTUALLY INSOLVENT (Afrikaans = FEITELIK INSOLVENT).
This is an acceptable ground in Court for the Liquidation of the Lions, and should any creditor wish to bring an Application for Liquidation of the Lions in the High Court, they will succeed with their Application!
Scary, is’nt it!
@ grootblousmile:
Shocking indeed.
11@ Morné:
Very shocking… and what’s worse is that the situation had deteriorated from 1 Financial year to the next, placing the creditors in an awkward situation… do we strike now and get SOME DIVIDENT from a Liquidation or do we wait and later get much less if the trend continues.
I know what my advice would have been to a client asking these questions….
10@ grootblousmile:
So are you basically saying that ANYONE that the GLRU owes money to could close them down should they fail to make the payment timeously?
That happened to a gym group some years ago when a Grandmother lost patience for a refund she was owed and closed them down. Can’t remember the name now, but I had a “lifetime” membership that wasn’t worth the plastic the membership card was written on.
This doesn’t bode well for the Lions. I was under the impression that they were “debt free” when Ferreira was still in charge as they’d paid off their overdraft with the overseas investment that Doc Luyt had made in the golden years. At the time there was a huge uproar about the investments being worth a fraction of what it was etc etc.
Eish, nou wat nou?
Ah remember now. Sharper Image Group.
14@ Scrumdown:
There are various grounds for launching an Application for Liquidation, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been out of Insolvency Law for long enough now not to be as razor sharp as I used to be on the applicable Law…
… but Grounds for Insolvency amongst others include DEEDS OF INSOLVENCY (like for instance the situation where a Company is unable to meet or pay a creditor or a Letter asking for a compromise) but FACTUAL INSOLVENCY, which is another ground for an Application does not even have to rely on a DEED OF INSOLVENCY.
In other words, the situation is worse than you thought…
Once again, I qualify my Statements here… I would actually like to see the actual Financial Statements, to render a correct interpretation, which I’ll take a bit further even and discuss informally with one of my clients who are current Insolvency Experts…
The normal thing for a situation like this is that the Company (Lions in this case) would argue that the values given up for their fixed assets (Coca Cola Park ect) is under realistic and under valued… but the Lions have a problem doing that, they are the ones who give these values to their Auditors and giving undue lower values or false values for that matter amounts to even bigger consequences from a Legal perspective.
The Law states that your Financial Statements and the figures it contains must be a true reflection of the actual situation, otherwise there is groooooooooooot kak! Who will take the fall then… and who might then wear the african bangles which could accompany such an event… who will be the fall-guy(s) for that?
I wonder who the CFO is at the Lions these days.
It used to be Peet Buys who was very approachable, but I know he moved on, then the guy who took over keeled over dead one day! Maybe the work pressure.
Who handles the purse strings now is anyone’s guess. I suppose as a registered company the info should be available from CIPRO or whatever they call themselves now.
15@ grootblousmile:
So I guess you are saying that potentially the Lions are in deep poo!
17@ Scrumdown:
Freegin In-farking-deed!!
PS… I have now seen and perused a copy of the Actual Financials signed by Kevin de Klerk and one Deputy President on 11 June 2011…
@ grootblousmile:
Please relate the findings…
19@ Morné:
Let me put it this way…
Blikkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkksemmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… eishhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, o fok………….. haibo, einaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
hmmm,
i’m sure it must be the stormers
or some stormers supporters (wink wink)
who’s spreading this malicious lies about the lions to get the attention off their shameful effort on this weekend, hehehehe
…
sorry morné
couldnt help myself!! 😆
15@ grootblousmile:
I hear what you say, but the argument will be that the “actual” value of improvements in the Ellis Park Precinct indicated on the balance sheet, after depreciation etc are not true market related values, and as such skew the figures on the balance sheet considerably.
For instance, after some 30 odd years, the Coke Tin probably has a “book value” of R20 – R 30 million (based on original building costs, depreciation etc), but in actual fact is probably worth well over R 500 million in today’s terms.
There is probably some credence in such an argument.
Or am I being too loyal again and looking for excuses / reasons?
Perhaps the Lions should consider a name change to the Greece(y) Lions. As in we run our business like the Greek economy, but are a truly African (King of the jungle – Lions) entity!
GBS, can you supply the link to these figures? I mean is it in the public domain, but just not well publicised?
24@ Lion4ever:
Brother, I do not want to make the 41 page document public, JUST YET… some of us in the media are considering the options and hope that the Lions make it public themselves.
Let me put it this way, I do not want to be the cause for more strife in the Lions Union and I definately do not want to be the cause of it’s demise. The Lions might not be my favourite Rugby Union, but I still feel a loyalty to them and to all of you Lions supporters.
What I would not mind is for the Lions Union to accept responsibility for the mediocre way the Lions Administration and Management have handled the business of the Lions and for the inept people, whomever they might be, to resign or to be fired.
Hang in there, we are seeking advice from some experts at the moment, regarding this matter….
If you wish, you can contact me via E-Mail at webmaster@rugby-talk.com so that we can take this a bit further, away from public scrutiny.
22@ Scrumdown:
Indeed that might be so… but then EVERY individual who has signed the Financial Statements of the Lions over the last number of years as well as every individual who serves or served in the Executive Committee and who has been privvy to the “Fraud” thus committed, is in a world of trouble!
The Executive Committee as well as the Auditors (PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc) signed this document, which includes a Statement of responsibility by the executive Committee, a Report by the Auditors, a Report by the executive committee… and of course the pages reflecting the exact figures.
The Statement of Responsibility AND the Report of the executive committee contains some damning and forceful wording regading the correctness of the information pertained in the Financial Statements…. and apart from that the Companies Act is very specific in the requirements as well as sanctions for not conforming to true values and true data.
Another thing to remember is not to calculate the value of fixed assets based on it’s replacement value but on it’s actual value in a very bad economic climate and market… and of course considering where te asset is situated.
Whatever the situation…. someone is lying somewhere….
26@ grootblousmile:
What I am trying to say is that from a GAAP point of view I’m sure that the value of the assets, in this case Ellis Park Stadium has been calculated and disclosed correctly, but that the Lions will argue that the “true” value is far higher.
I can’t see anyone on the Exco’ deliberately reducing the value for reporting purposes, and I’m sure they would not be allowed to increase the value of an asset like the stadium uni-laterally for reporting purposes either.
Don’t know if it makes sense what I’m trying to explain.
I guess it’s like that old car your Ouma drives. The insurance value might only be ZAR 5000, but the true value is far higher in real terms. Am I making sense or should I just STFU and hope the Lions come clean?
27@ Scrumdown:
Whatever the situation, the fact remains that from 2009 where the balance sheet reflects a 26 million Rand deficit between assets and liabilities, they are now on 44.2 million Rand deficit… that means in real terms that they have slid down by no less than R 18.2 million Rand in the space of ONE financial year.
We’re halfway through another year at this stage… is there another 18 million Rand loss (or better or worse loss) looming for the 2011 year?
Facts are, something has to be done… and fast… by people wo really understand business principles!
Where is the money being hidden? I mean, if one looks at the Coca Cola deal, the various sponsorships,past and present and the test played at FNB Stadium, those were all money spinners, and also profits from SWC, and all the soccer matches played there? Should be a lot of money coming in to the union from EPWS. Something, somewhere is not right.
28@ grootblousmile:
Point taken.
Back later. Got to go and see a client in the heart of Lions territory, Brixton.
Hope I make it out alive!
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