Men among boys
19 Sep 2012
GARETH DUNCAN, writing in SA Rugby magazine, investigated the KZN over-age scandal that rocked the national schools scene.
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There was just over a week to go before the annual derby between Glenwood and Durban High School (DHS) when reports emerged that two high-profile schoolboys had been found to be overage, with one being 22 years old. 
Glenwood captain and wing Siyabonga Tom and DHS fullback Mbembe Payi were said to be the guilty parties, which was confirmed when they didn’t feature in the Green Machine’s 34-9 home victory over DHS on 26 May.
A provincial investigation ensued, headed by KZN High Schools Rugby Association boss Noel Ingle, and six more boys from the U16 and U18 provincial trial teams were found to be overage. They were withdrawn from their respective squads.
Noel extended the investigation to expose the adults who had also been involved.
‘We wanted to find out who the guilty parties were,’ he says. ‘The schools are not the issue. The players are accountable to some extent, but it’s the scouts and agents who have probably played a big role in organising fake identity documents. However, we couldn’t find solid evidence to prove this.’
This scandal has shocked those involved in South African schools rugby. Payi and Tom were respected figures in KZN, having represented the U18 Craven Week team in Kimberley last year, while Tom was selected for the SA Schools squad and started in the 21-14 win over France U18 in Port Elizabeth.
Tom was also picked for the SA U18 Sevens team to compete at the 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games in the Isle of Man. I was the media manager for Team SA and was told that Tom had to be withdrawn as he didn’t possess a passport or an ID to qualify for a UK visa. The sevens coaches and management believed this was due to a lack of initiative from the player and his parents. It wasn’t known that Tom’s birth certificate – the only document he had to prove he was born in 1994 – was fake.
Glenwood 1st XV and KZN U18 Craven Week coach Sean Erasmus says the truth only emerged this year when the provincial players were being registered through Saru.
‘The women who were in charge of our registering said something didn’t match in Siyabonga’s form, and that it had to do with his ID number,’ explains Erasmus. ‘But we sent the form through to Saru anyway, hoping that the issue could be sorted out. Their guys found the same problem and they said Siyabonga was overage.
‘I was shocked,’ Erasmus continues. ‘This was a player I had grown so close to over the past couple of years. He was more than just a player, he was like family. He had lunch in my home on most Sundays.
‘When the news broke, Siyabonga went missing. He sent me an SMS, saying: “Hi coach. Sorry I couldn’t give you my side of the story and say goodbye. But everything will be revealed when the time is right. Send my love to everyone.”
‘I tried calling the number, but it didn’t work. He’s been missing ever since.’
At the time of writing, it was believed that Tom and Payi had returned home to the Eastern Cape, where they were once recruited as disadvantaged youngsters with raw talent.
This development plan has been used by many top South African schools for years, and Erasmus feels it shouldn’t be frowned upon because of this episode.
‘These boys from the Eastern Cape get an opportunity to obtain a good education and to play a game they love at higher levels. It was just unfortunate that this had to happen. The other schoolboys who have come from the Eastern Cape have been found to be the legal age.’
Noel believes the overage saga is a nationwide problem – ‘It would be unfair to say this is only an issue in KZN’ – and Saru registration officer Andrew Louwrens agrees.
Louwrens has been in charge of provincial age-group registrations for the past seven years and has come across many cases concerning overage players.
‘You had to see some of the application forms when I first started this process,’ says Louwrens. ‘It was obvious that some of the ID documents had been tampered with. The worst case I’ve seen was a 22-year-old selected for an U16 Grant Khomo Week team! There were also boys trying to enter with ID numbers that were tracked back to females.
‘The situation has improved over the years, but you get some players who try their luck. And they get quite ridiculous. One year, I rejected one player’s application but he still showed up for the competition. I told him and his parents that he wasn’t going to be allowed to play. After the argument, his father tried to bribe me.’
Louwrens says Saru has established a new application system to improve things.
‘The main issue we have with registration is that a player only needs to attach a certified copy of his birth certificate or an ID. But this doesn’t mean the application is legit … it could still be a certified copy of a fake document. It’s so easy to buy a fake ID in cities like Bhisho.
‘So now we are getting the schools and parents involved by including them in the process. The headmaster and parents need to sign that their student or son is the correct age and all his details are accurate. They can then be held accountable. It’s not the ultimate solution, but this is one of the first steps to finding one.’
South African Schools Rugby Association (Sasra) acting chairman Thys Bezuidenhout hopes this matter will be sorted out effectively at the board’s annual general meeting in October.
‘This will definitely be at the top of our agenda,’ he says. ‘It’s disappointing because legal players are being denied opportunities. You will always find a loophole in any registration system, but hopefully the new process will start stamping out the registration of overage players.’
Bezuidenhout adds there are currently no formal punishment protocols.
‘We hope to have some drawn up soon. These issues are similar to corruption and have to be seen in the same serious light. Bans should be issued to players found guilty. And we will deal with those players who have gone missing when they re-emerge.’
Saru head of schools Nico Serfontein says agents will also be punished if they are found to be involved in overage cases: ‘We have a list of all the South African agents who are allowed to represent our national players. If any of them have a hand in organising fake documents, their licences will be revoked.
‘I doubt agents will put their careers on the line for schoolboys. Parents also need to come on board as agents are only allowed to represent players from the age of 18.’
This is positive news from the national unions, but action needs to be taken as soon as possible.
At the end of June, there was a registration issue with the Golden Lions U18 Academy Week squad.
‘The player’s ID says he was born in 1994, but his birth certificate says he was born in 1993,’ explains Lions manager of community rugby Pieter Visser. ‘We have decided not to follow this up at home affairs and have withdrawn him from the team instead.’
This could be a home affairs mistake, but it could also be another case of cheating. If it is the latter, hopefully it will be one of the last.
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40 Comments
19 Sep 2012, 05:16 am
Dishonest dragons
19 Sep 2012, 05:27 am
In a country rife with corruption at all levels of society this comes as a surprise. Obviously.
19 Sep 2012, 07:11 am
What I read in this article is that it is a fraudulent dishonesty issue amongst black players from the EC. Go figure
19 Sep 2012, 07:38 am
My favourite comment from the Glenwood coach : “We sent the form through to Sarfu anyway hoping it would be sorted out”
Kind of acknowledgement! Seems that it should read:”We sent the form through to Sarfu anyway hoping that they would not recognise the error?”
Anyway – whole situation stinks. I will not sit and say poor people who just want a decent education…horse sh*t. I will say poor legitimate kids who missed their opportunity to make craven week ,and poor legitimate kids who got injured at the hands of the kids 5 years their senior.
I dont look at transformation at the issue, its fairly and squarely with the administrators, and the players & his families.
The fact that they are missing, and sent apologetic messages to the coach says they knew about it, and their character could not care less.
Disgusting! Absolutely disgusting.
In SA, once you are 18, you are a man and responsible for your actions.
These men are 22…. Take responsibility for your own errors.
P*ss poor, and yet further ammunition against the flawed SARFU.
19 Sep 2012, 08:10 am
It is funny, both these men cheats hail fron PE but Transformer was saying they are not PE
boysmen – what is going on here.Somebody do an expose on Odwa and Aikona for them it is oupa’s among men.
19 Sep 2012, 08:23 am
@RL-5: transkei and PE are not the same thing, but you knew that neh?
19 Sep 2012, 08:24 am
Pray tell me how this is ANY different to schoolboys doping themselves into hulk like creatures? Bodies of 25 year old men, crammed into the brains of 16/17/18 year old kids,most of who can’t spell testosterone.
Cheating is cheating, and this is no better, no worse than the usual doping scandals that hit schoolboy rugby almost daily…..
Bottom line is: kids of all races, from all over SA are desperate for success, which makes the kid taking roids no different from the kid lying about his age – except maybe their personal circumstances (often a reason for doing whatever it takes to get ahead).
@BULLET-4: Legitimate kids who got injured playing against men 5 years older than them? Ditto for the poor ‘clean’ kids who get injured playing against roid stuffed kids who are bigger, stronger and more aggro then them.
SARU to sort out all of the issues, and not just focus on one….
Moving on.
19 Sep 2012, 08:25 am
“A provincial investigation ensued, headed by KZN High Schools Rugby Association boss Noel Ingle, and six more boys from the U16 and U18 provincial trial teams were found to be overage. They were withdrawn from their respective squads.”
Gareth, can you do more investigation and get us the names of the other boys and where they’re from?
19 Sep 2012, 08:26 am
@Transformation-8: in fact, you KNOW noel ingle did the investigation, get the names from him and publish them.
19 Sep 2012, 08:42 am
Isn’t this an old story
19 Sep 2012, 08:44 am
It’s no wonder al Qaeda love to get their documents in South Africa.
That said I don’t blame the kids as much as I do the agents and schools who feign innocence.
When you come from nothing and somebody offers you a break it’s hard to say no.
19 Sep 2012, 08:50 am
@gunther-11: Not only Al Qaeda. Zim refugees like old HG, also manage to knock off a good few years on their NEW SA ID documents….i.e. real age 58. NEW age 42.
It’s a BOOM for the middle aged ‘daddies’ amongst us.
19 Sep 2012, 09:08 am
@Gunther11,
I completely disagree with your post number 11. When you come from nothing, and somebody offers you a break to lie & cheat, it should be easy enough to say no if you have moral fibre.
Its the same reason that many people who come from nothing dont resort to crime. I know that its a tough cycle to break, but at the end of the day, character says a lot about somebody.
19 Sep 2012, 09:10 am
@7 Sharksrugby….
Totally in alignment with you.
All schoolboys playing 1st team rugby should be urine tested by the province every 2 months in rugby season. Should a player fail, ban him for 2 years. Pretty simple, and easy to administrate.
Problem is that the provinces would rather have these players getting juiced up before they come into the provincial ranks. It suits them to have the players arriving at u19 weighing 110kg, instead of 90kg.
19 Sep 2012, 09:12 am
Zero toleranchould not be for just drinking & driving.
Also, the sharks should not carry on with this anti bullying campaign, rather change it to anti steriods, cheating & bullying!
Make it cleaner and all encompassing.
19 Sep 2012, 09:17 am
What’s with the 50 shades of grey this morning??
19 Sep 2012, 09:18 am
@stormersboy – Its the anti sharks campaign!
No black or white!
19 Sep 2012, 09:18 am
I assume these players are actually legit students studying to pass some high school grading who also happen to be rugby players, as distinct from fly by nighter’s who registered a few weeks prior to the provincial championship comp.
19 Sep 2012, 09:24 am
I have often heard the question (on this site and others); “what happens to the many talented black school “kids” when making the transition to senior ranks”
The people that pose this question often lament blame on the (mostly) white senior level coaches for discarding black players in favour of white players but I think this article might uncover a possible reason why these black players shone at school level and were very ordinary when moving onto the senior ranks and losing the age advantage that they had when at school?
How rife is this problem? these few names might just be the tip of the iceberg.
19 Sep 2012, 09:24 am
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food-7: The difference is that you compare stupid actions of kids, with adults posing as kids. Major difference in my opinion.
19 Sep 2012, 09:33 am
@brains_trust-19: hhmm
before you make unfounded and spurious assumptions, find out the names of the SIX other boys who were found over age by this noel ingle’s investigation. Mbembe Payi and Siya Tom were Itembelihle High School in New Brighton and got “bursaries” to go to the schools in Durban, now for you to make harebrained conclusions about boys who start Prep at Dale, Selborne, Queens, St Andrew’s, Graeme, Kingswood. Stirling, Daniel Pienaar, Muir on the basis of this article is ridiculous.
bark up another tree
19 Sep 2012, 09:34 am
@DG-20: what is a “stupid action”, knowingly taking a banned substance? lol
19 Sep 2012, 09:45 am
@Transformation-21: I am asking the top notch KEO investigative journalists to uncover the names and probe a little deeper, I don’t have their awesome talent and skill set to uncover the full story.
KEO lads, use those contacts and give us more info !
19 Sep 2012, 09:45 am
@Transformation-22: Eish we aren’t going there again today are we??
19 Sep 2012, 09:54 am
On this issue, I think that the schools need to be a bit more circumspect here and do their compliance properly. If you do not have a proper SA ID document than this needs to be obtained before the youngster is chosen.
There needs to be a penalty for the schools (and province) for fielding an over age player, which will place more of the responsibility on them. They are just shrugging their shoulders and saying, “gosh, we didn’t know”
I’m sure this happens in all the provinces, not just KZN.
19 Sep 2012, 09:58 am
This is all just an innocent misunderstanding. Some people mistakenly believe that when you repeat a year at school, the Department of Home Affairs also resets your ID.
19 Sep 2012, 10:17 am
@stormersboy-24: going where, if you don’t mind me asking?
19 Sep 2012, 10:49 am
@katman-26:
lol
19 Sep 2012, 11:13 am
What we also need to realise that some of these boys who were born in the rural areas were only registered a year or to after they were actually born. It was a logistic nightmare for parents to get to a Home Affairs office soon after they were born.
My son turned 16 this year and is playing under 18 because his physically able to do so. Can’t imagine him facing a 22 year old at such a young age would he be able to front up physically. This overage issue must be sorted out to give youngsters a fair opportunity to be selected provincially.
19 Sep 2012, 11:55 am
@DG-20: No difference at all. Unfair physical advantage is unfair physical advantage…..
19 Sep 2012, 12:07 pm
Is Mvovo actually OLDER than Habana?
19 Sep 2012, 14:49 pm
I giggle with a lack of surprize in reading this story.
In Natal, the only way to win is to cheat.
19 Sep 2012, 15:13 pm
I went to Glenwood High School and I can confirm that this has been happening for a very long time. The teachers and headmaster are well aware of it.
Glenwood has a system called Post-Matric which is really just a way of getting rugby stars to spend another year at school after matric so that they can still contribute to the 1st team. Being overage has never mattered and is hardly ever checked up on at this level.
Trevor Kershaw (Headmaster) and Tony Pinheiro (HOD) should be investigated.
Side issue: Kershaw has been buying players from other schools for ages now. It’s the only reason Glenwood is a somehwat decent rugby school these days.
20 Sep 2012, 08:20 am
@YoMama-32: Yep and even then, the player’s still come from outside of the province! In the final of the Super 15, there were only two players in the starting 15 who went to school in KZN and only one that was born there.
20 Sep 2012, 08:22 am
@Kaizan-33: Post matric has been happening forever. Bishops had it back in the 80′s when I was at school. During the same period, Waterkloof was paying the first team players, R50 a match.
20 Sep 2012, 08:26 am
Like this hasn’t been happening since the dawn of time. Only, 30 years ago, no one asked for any ID because rugby wasn’t technically professional. There is no way that some of the schools I played against – Affies, Monument, VH etc. didn’t have players that were in their 20′s.
21 Sep 2012, 23:32 pm
Shout Out To Mr. Ingle, The Main Man At George Campbell.
25 Sep 2012, 01:29 am
OMG this is just typical of Saffer Rugby and to make it worse – at school boy level. Of course all of this ‘cheating, lying, deceiving, etc etc’ is symptomatic of SA rugby, it goes from the grassroots at school boy level to the top, what a bunch of CHEATS does SA know anything else but cheat. That is why SA will always be regarded in the darkest possible terms by all other rugby nations, can’t be trusted, just a bunch of THUGS (Greyling et al) and so on….please do AUS and NZ and ARG a favour and go North to play your rugby – what LOSERS
22 Oct 2012, 05:55 am
@JohnPierre-38: You recognise all the traits so well they must be something you are well used to in your neck of the woods.Believe me,nz and oz are no better.They just dont check theres properly.You dont think the players from the islands wouldnt cheat to get int top schools in nz amd oz.Dream on sunshine.Maybe there should be an investigation down there and see what is turned up.There would just be a cover up as we have seen how you lot like to take the moral high ground.At least we came out and admitted there was a problem and delved deeper into it and are trying to sort it out you loser.If we went up north you wouldnt have a comp you tool.You can bleat on that you would but money would be seriously short for you lot.I wish we would leave then maybe all you halfwits would leave this site.I suppose we can only dream.
22 Oct 2012, 07:04 am
@snivelling little kiwi pricks-39:
Proof please or STFU
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