Here lies a tyrant
19 Feb 2013
MARK KEOHANE, writing in Business Day Sport Monthly, says former South African rugby chief Louis Luyt was a power-hungry egotist who did more harm than good in his role as leader.
Louis Luyt is dead but the lie that defines his legacy to the game as legendary must also be buried. He was destructive in everything he did as president of the South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) and motivated by his own agenda and ego and he was a risk to the future of the game.
He functioned on fiction because only he knew what was closer to fact.
This is a condemnation of Luyt the Sarfu president. It is not a reflection on his right to be respected as a father, husband and friend.
He was a crass leader who thrived on the humiliation of others and he caused pain to many people with decisions that were not based on rugby but on his own insecurity and paranoia. There can’t be reward for lacking emotional intelligence and there can never be justification for the chaos.
Luyt’s legacy was a dictatorship that threatened more than a sport’s unity. He harmed the sport and he embarrassed the sport without consequence or without remorse. He did it regularly and saw it as refusing to be intimidated.
He was a reminder of everything the world detested in apartheid South Africa but he survived on the fears of those who were uncertain about the future and ill-informed and still related to noise as leadership, when introspection and reflection were words more appropriate to change. A legacy is earned through innovation and the impact of an action; not an ability just to react.
Luyt was a fighter and his strength was based on survival. Sarfu needed calm and vision and he provided chaos and confrontation.
It suited his needs because the noise was part of the illusion that he was taking charge of rugby’s future. He was a fascinating character because of his contradictions, but he was not good for the game and he stifled progress through his inability to transform his own thinking. He was unsure about his status and he always overcompensated with boasts when unsure, be it because of lack of knowledge or because he threatened his ability to use Sarfu to define his influence in a community that used his voice when necessary but never fully endorsed him as part of the exclusive brotherhood.
This was down to class and not race. It was this lack of acceptance that tortured him. But he knew about survival because of a background that battled poverty. Wealth would also be measured on status and worth. To get there he would fight. So he fought because that meant not allowing for discussion and not risking being exposed on an intellectual level.
He was a clever man but he lacked introspection because of insecurities in not having a high schooling. It meant he only knew how to make statements.
In his world that was strength. To ask a question was to invite trouble.
Leadership is at its most seductive when those in charge can take pleasure out of another’s achievement. Luyt could never do that because he could not even take pleasure out of his own successes.
He had an incredible work ethic, which intimidated and compensated for an inability to see beyond what worked for him personally and as a leader. He also blurred the power of knowledge with the gathering of information on individuals to further entrench his presidency. He had menace when there should have been mentorship. He never made an apology for any of his actions and a man who always thinks he gets it right is a man who is rarely getting it right.
He embraced those vulnerable to his projections of strength and bullying and he never saw the contradiction in how he applied the morality of the God-fearing man and the lack of morality in his manipulation of people.
We once debated loyalty and he was absolute. People, he said, crossed him once and thought they had won. He told them to enjoy the feeling because he would make sure they spent the rest of their lives reminded of what price to pay for betrayal in loyalty.
His life was interesting but he was too preoccupied in the potential of others to be the enemy that he found a reason to justify an agenda that in turn would justify a reaction for a confrontational engagement.
His ego would never allow him modesty and he insisted he had earned the right to be called doctor. Titles and status are what he felt defined his characters. His actions were for gain. When was it ever about rugby?
His rugby world was a creation to compensate for what he felt he lacked in a personal space. He could be charming but his charm was too often determined by the personal gain. He bored easily if he was not the primary beneficiary. His mind was always busy but the intent wasn’t always flattering and he excused any criticism as a necessary to protect the game from those who didn’t understand it. He blamed the government and rugby was his status for greater acceptance in an Afrikaans elite that would never see him as their equal.
The bully was his default mechanism and if he was full of bravado he didn’t have to front his fears of being inferior. He did not trust anyone but celebrated just how many enemies he had. Enemies caused fear. Friends could only cause confusion.
He was convinced he needed no one to survive but he never understood that to survive is not to necessarily inspire. Not that it would have been a consideration. He was angry that he was disliked although he denied it and there was an element in him that deliberately added to the dislike. The man who made rugby his kingdom was always aware that the boy in him wanted acknowledgement and reward.
He never found his place in South African society and always felt he had been short-changed. If he wasn’t getting the recognition then why would he celebrate anyone else.
He took nothing from the game unless he was the beneficiary. He justified everything in the name of Springbok rugby and the Afrikaans culture and he manipulated the game that represented the culture more than a sport. Where most would find a smile he found suspicion.
I liked him but he was not happy.
I always got the feeling he wouldn’t even allow for that because that could be an admission he had not won.
He was always in conflict and his tenure was about fighting whoever he felt provided a cover to the real issue, which was his insecurity.
He took but he gave little.
It is one thing to preach from a self-made pedestal but a leader of men is also an inspiration to the very men he leads.
He wanted mystique but then couldn’t resist telling you what he had done for South African rugby. He created an identity he believed would give him acceptance and he alienated every dominating personality.
He was a preacher of what he wanted portrayed, yet the intention to be liked and revered was not something he could ask for, so as he lost a disciple who realised the legend is what makes the man but the actions of the man that confirms the flaws in the legend.
If the game was his passion and the future of the game was his only concern we would be talking about his vision, his succession plan and his leadership.
The story would be of the guy who turned rags into silk but knew God. It is embarrassing. The only thing he gave rugby was conflict and blood. He adopted a militant style approach in which he spoke and never allowed for a response.
He stripped players of power and humiliated them and threatened their futures in the media. In a country where fear and conflict were positives that someone was in charge, he put himself in charge of the game and was never asked what he was actually going to do to make it the game for all South Africans.
He used the divide and rule among blacks and whites because he recognised weakness in an individual and played the vulnerabilities to facilitate whatever outcome that comes with uncertainty.
He took Nelson Mandela and the government to court to prove he was still a white Afrikaner who would not be intimidated by the black government.
He made sure it was a page one report.
He did it, he said, to show Afrikaners still had a voice and still had fight. He then used rugby as the punching bag.
He used culture, white fears and black unknowns to have so many applauding his strengths. But it was never about resolution or calm. It was about conflict and chaos because when there is no fight then there is usually reflection. In a fight there is only time to react.
Luyt’s legacy conflicts with every single entity that makes up the fabric of the game. He took the game he supposedly loved and made it his own game. He was an untouchable because he manipulated the executive structure – and when fear no longer sufficed neither did his games inspire even laughter.
He still couldn’t see the moral crime in subjecting Mandela to take the witness stand. He claimed victory but it also confirmed stupidity.
He tried so hard to create an identity of the Lions but he was a railway clerk whose arrogance and defiance was a misrepresentation of the culture whose silence he interpreted as a fight.
He fired by fax and turned the most disgraceful of acts into a kind of legend which applauded a man who was prepared to make the hard calls. All he knew was hardship and that is all he gave back to South African rugby.
It is disgusting that he was allowed to operate in such isolation and as a law unto himself. He clearly had a mind that favoured his own survival but emotional intelligence is the result of an environment and tutorship and being taught, not self-taught.
He never added value to the game’s evolution. There is no legacy to applaud. His rugby administration was a contradiction. Morality was as interpretive as was loyalty and betrayal.
Rugby was the platform for Luyt to turn a lost soul into a tortured one and he tried to make everyone believe that his soul knew only sacrifice.
He was a sad man because not only did he derive pleasure at the expense of others but the ultimate humiliation was of his own doing because his identity and influence believed there was substance to his existence, but he could never get what he thought was a show of strength. And arrogance was ignorance and in degrees of ignorance the worst form is when there is a belief that all the ugly qualities that make a leader uninspiring are presented as strengths of a no-nonsense leader.
Luyt did not entertain minds that would expose the limitations of his own and it is one thing to fight but another to succeed without a fight.
A day before his death no one cared for his rants. A day after the myth is magnified. The platitudes have been predictable and inoffensive but the inane nature is more insult than compliment to the King of Ellis Park and self-proclaimed King of the Rugby Jungle.
In death he did no evil. In life he only knew evil.
Luyt’s final act as South African rugby chief was to embarrass the intellect and integrity of Afrikaans-speaking South Africans who are excited by inclusion on the world map and not offended that it was not listed as the chosen planet.
The good doctor was so insecure at what he hadn’t experienced because of his environment that he believed titles would create the illusion of intelligence and that fear was just another way of making sure no one disputed he was the boss.
His decision to humiliate one of the world’s saints was the act of a sinner; alternatively a man who was showing his lack of class, education and upbringing. His attempts to justify his action and his conviction in doing so belong on The Jerry Springer Show.
He always spoke of not needing to be popular and then he found something in popularity that he sold to himself as weakness.
Come to think of it, he rarely spoke about what was good for South African rugby. He always spoke about what he was doing for South African rugby and he created the chaos and never had time to explain what it was that kept him so busy. He didn’t give South African rugby professionalism. He didn’t care. In the last few years all he did was condemn the government. He manipulated the weakness in rugby’s administration to impress his strength.
He was an impostor as a leader and the game deserved so much more. Luyt, when he lived, benefited from the illusion of his leadership.
Don’t allow the lie to continue.
– This article first appeared in the March issue of Business Day Sport Monthly, which is distributed FREE with the newspaper on the second last Friday of every month.
748 Comments
Pages: « 1 … 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 [14] 15 » Show All
19 Feb 2013, 21:44 pm
@Transformation-650: hmm…you mean it isnt beamed into ec kings 10?
19 Feb 2013, 21:44 pm
My little @(-_-)@
For the record it is Sergeal Petersen not Pietersen as you say you idiot.
And it is Mbhiyozo not ” mbhiyozob” you dumasss transformer.
19 Feb 2013, 21:46 pm
@RL-647: ” acting
all duplicitious with your “mbhiyozob” going
to make them bang remark”
lol you are clearly bored now that your surrendermonkeys are cooling their jets playing Test match rugga
19 Feb 2013, 21:46 pm
@RL-631:
Xhosa rugby playing tribe? Who the hell are they?
19 Feb 2013, 21:47 pm
@YoMama-624: Vleis Visagie would’ve been guilty of a crime (if a charge against him had been pursued to finality), but he was both perpetrator & (one of the) victims. The charge against Vleis was withdrawn on compassionate grounds, & I believe correctly so. Killing your own child (by mistake) is a terrible ordeal & of itself far more than ample punishment. Civilised society demands no more than punishment commensurate with the severity of the crime. Hence the charge was withdrawn. Vleis & Oscar’s cases only appear to be similar, but in fact they are not. In Vleis’s case the facts were not in dispute, the shooting was obviously a case of mistaken identity & a horrible tragedy, & he was charged with culpable homicide (murder would’ve stuck, if preferred, imo). In Oscar’s case the facts are in dispute & the prosecution is preferring a charge of murder (by premeditation) – a very serious crime.
Visagie’s case is not in point & distinguishable from that of Pistorius.
**
“He could sue them for billions.”
Really? Billions? You’ve had insight into those contracts & can therefore quantify such potential claims to such astronomical levels?
19 Feb 2013, 21:56 pm
@The Rangerman-651: i was inbetween exercises when i posted about verkykers in reply to gunther but hey when your team are playing the likes of russia being a hawk over banter becomes interesting
you guppys deserve the rabied lion hehehe
i see most stormers fans are relieved the filth has decide to creep up ur cloacas now.
19 Feb 2013, 21:57 pm
kEOA lance tilted for UFO.Your best and most loyal post er
who has been hounded out of here ,not by your comments but
by your attitude.
Now heres the thing,a s my baptisi minister used to preface
each sermon.
Every comment you make is pr esented as fact.No room for debate.
T his is arrogance in th e ext reme.
There are brilliantly clever posters on this site.They are not children.
Enter into debates with them.(English & Afrikaans)But do not try to force your opinion on them as faits accomplis..This is called “engaging=in dialogue”
19 Feb 2013, 21:58 pm
The more things change, the more they stay the same
Johannesburg – Toulon lock Bakkies Botha has been cited for a shoulder charge on Montpellier wing Yoan Audrin.
According to the supersport.com website, the former Springbok lock will face a disciplinary committee on March 5 after taking out Audrin without the ball during Toulon’s 51-6 victory over Montpellier at Stade Felix Mayol last weekend.
In a bizarre twist of events, Audrin was shown a yellow card for (involuntarily) clattering into Toulon scrumhalf Nicolas Durand in the air after being bumped off course by Botha, whose enormous frame obscured the referee’s view.
The match was just Botha’s second game back after a long layoff following surgery on a fractured eye socket.
19 Feb 2013, 21:59 pm
@mxhosa-654: uqhunyiwe lo utyiwa ngumona qha kuba lavobe weqela alilandelayo likhiqiwe
19 Feb 2013, 22:01 pm
@nortierd-658: i watched that game…very entertaining…toulon were on fire going into halftime leading 29 – 6…
gits was in his element.
19 Feb 2013, 22:04 pm
@stormersboy-625: Good player.
Big loss to us.Please ase Skop to update his re cords.
19 Feb 2013, 22:05 pm
@Transformation-659:
Ayinguye yedwa, uninzi lalamadlagusha luziveza elubala ba abafuni nanto edidibene nabantu abamnyama…
19 Feb 2013, 22:07 pm
@Transformation-656: s hostile?
whats wrong transie, tell the ranger?
@ryecatcher-657: howdy rye, hope you are well.
i see keo wants me to email him with luyts contributions to sarugby
looks like he didnt enjoy the mirror being held up.
19 Feb 2013, 22:08 pm
@Sheriff-636: As a lawman tats shameful pal.Ear to the ground eh.
19 Feb 2013, 22:09 pm
tata = thats(freudian)
19 Feb 2013, 22:11 pm
@Transformation-660:
They are typical French, one day hot, the next cold.
It’s the influx of SH players that make it enjoyable.
Lucky for us, the rugby proper starts Friday, last week end was just the appetizer.
19 Feb 2013, 22:14 pm
@mxhosa-654: that comes from an aussie report about the kings first game vs the force
it was quite amusing.
but truth be told, my mate works on a perlemoen farm in haga haga and he reckons the staff often turn up with rugby injuries after a weekends rugby match on a dusty township field.
they are rugby befok according to him and given time they might surprise a lot of people.
19 Feb 2013, 22:15 pm
KEO.
Hi keo,am not usually a pamphleteer or poster.,but here goes.
In support of UFO.The best poster you have ever has who supported this
site through thick and thin.What a mealy mouthed reply to loyalty.
19 Feb 2013, 22:21 pm
@The Rangerman-667:
Who will surprise a lot of people? The Kings or the rugby befok Xhosa tribe from Haga Haga?
19 Feb 2013, 22:23 pm
@mxhosa-669: black rugby loving people from the ec.
you also feeling a bit sensitive tonight?
19 Feb 2013, 22:24 pm
Here is a cool site!
http://www.sarugbymag.co.za/
19 Feb 2013, 22:26 pm
sheesh it looks like some people just want to argue.
personally i am so chilled i cant find it in myself tonight.
off to mozam on thursday morning. now those black people are definitely not rugby befok.
19 Feb 2013, 22:27 pm
@ryecatcher-657: i actually don’t get this recent feigned indignation by some. keo has always presented his opinions ss HIS eg
www. keo.co.za/2011/08/26/end-of-an-error/
he never debated with us the merits & demerits of pdv or jake or straueli and now even luyt!
19 Feb 2013, 22:31 pm
@Transformation-673: ja, the pub is open to all and we arent censored like that piece of tu r d silverfern
hell even the kiwis who come here find it hard at first but eventually let their inner poopsie out
19 Feb 2013, 22:31 pm
@The Rangerman-667: did you see Forza (Fort Hare) beat pdv’s UWC gister? boyties
19 Feb 2013, 22:33 pm
@RL-631: How is your new buddy,Sharkslover doing? Just ,quickly,look down your leg.
19 Feb 2013, 22:35 pm
@Transformation-675: i didnt bud but well done to them.
luckily the place i am going in mozam has dstv but we will be on the water most of the day, every day, so i may only get highlights of a lot of the sport.
luckily its a long season!
19 Feb 2013, 22:35 pm
@The Analyst-671: as dead as rt.
19 Feb 2013, 22:35 pm
@The Rangerman-670:
LOL! EC people have always been rugby befok, that’s why 70% (thumb suck) of black rugby players are from this region. And no am not feeling sensitive, just wanted to be sure. I’m quite happy actually. An English tootball team is being taken apart at home…
19 Feb 2013, 22:36 pm
@S_K-676: how are your irish masters treating you boyo?
19 Feb 2013, 22:40 pm
@mxhosa-679: ja look my point was that the kings can be a catalyst.
personally they will get short shrift from me when they play the sharks.
my advice to kings fans is buckle up, its gonna be bumpy so forget all the politics and focus on finding reasons to be happy with your team, win or lose, because without consistent support they wont be around long.
19 Feb 2013, 22:41 pm
ok, i am out.
have a good evening all.
19 Feb 2013, 22:43 pm
Danger
Are you going divingin Mozambique?
19 Feb 2013, 22:48 pm
@cab-683: howzit cab, ja we are spearfishing for 8 days.
in paradise.
19 Feb 2013, 22:48 pm
@ryecatcher-668: Hi Rye, did Keo reply to UFO? If so I must’ve missed it, do you know around what time it was?
19 Feb 2013, 22:49 pm
@The Rangerman-681:
Not with the team they put out. Cheers…
19 Feb 2013, 22:49 pm
gotta sleep cabbie, laters man.
19 Feb 2013, 22:56 pm
Yes beautiful waters there – later.
19 Feb 2013, 22:56 pm
@mxhosa-679: lol @ the gooners
View conversation ·
Piers Morgan
@ piersmorgan
1h
I admire those Arsenal fans who
truly believe we can beat this Bayern
team over 2 legs. They’re completely
deluded, but I admire them.
View details ·
19 Feb 2013, 23:02 pm
Pasop Francois Hougaard.
Today’s Star quotes an unnamed weapons expert describing the Vector .223 rifle, one of the six licences Oscar Pistorius applied for last month…
“You would use it for shooting springbok at long distance – it’s perfect for that.”
#ironic
19 Feb 2013, 23:09 pm
@Transformation-689:
LOL! The English are a funny bunch, they believe that everytime they go to a major champioship, they can actually win…
19 Feb 2013, 23:09 pm
keo
You seriously went OTT in this little piece. And as previous posters have said, would you have posted this as a tribute to Louis Luyt while he was still alive? And have permittted Luyt the courtesy of a reply?
We all know the answer to that one.
You said “He was a clever man but he lacked introspection because of insecurities in not having a high schooling”. Did you know that he was an internationally reknowned arbitration lawyer? Do your homework, Mark. and deserving of the doctorate.
Did you know he was the chief negotiator for Sanzar in securing the $555 million contract with Newscorp that changed the rugby landscape for ever? Did you know that Newscorp agreed on $550 million but Luyt pushed for the extra $5 million? Just because he could, he said afterwards.
Now, Louis Luyt was not everybody’s cup of tea. He was bombastic, boorish, dominating, self-serving yes – but he got things done.
Just ask the Lions supporters whether they would like a young Louis Luyt at the helm or the current set-up. Both you and I know the answer to that one. And yet, in your opinion he did nothing for rugby. Louis Luyt left the Lions R80 million to the good – a year ago, they were R80 million in the hole.
By the way, did you take the trouble to read his autobiography? If not, I think you should.
Seeing as you didn’t meet him personally.
19 Feb 2013, 23:17 pm
great article, Keo, thanks for telling it like it is! Hope they wrapped Luyt in the old flag & told him to vokkof
19 Feb 2013, 23:31 pm
@drew-693:
Louis Luyt owed you money, didn’t he?
Thought so!
19 Feb 2013, 23:37 pm
Search your hearts, Saffers. You know that LL and his brethren did what had to be done for The Cause. Who was behind the poisoning of the All Blacks at that tainted World Cup? And, do you secretly approve?
19 Feb 2013, 23:47 pm
@Transformation-648:
What will be the take home message of that headline(City Press)?
How many more people read the article than the mere headline?
If you do not arrive at a negative figure then you have wasted my time. But then again have you honoured the maths. and chemical sciences requirements of a chemical engineer?
As for your buddy his shuttlecock is so short(thanks to his Scottish and thus European claims) that he would not know the difference between the game of badminton and the one he wrongly refers to(not worth a waste).
It is good enough for him to be so proud his daughter will never be black(his words) in her land of birth.
20 Feb 2013, 00:34 am
Oh dear the huffing Huffington tribe have spoken
Have they spoken with their fleet huffing feet flexing their sanctimonious muscles showing solidarity to all hard done by affected affiliates of the last bombastic dictator to wear the vierkleur in defiance so desperately?
20 Feb 2013, 00:49 am
@skopdiekan-697:
Be careful criticizing someone, they might compare your achievemants with his
And he achieved a bit more in live than you, he was a millionaire at forty and ran rugby for a few
20 Feb 2013, 00:58 am
What a lot of drivel. The rants of a bitter man. This is one of the poorest pieces of journalism I have ever read.
20 Feb 2013, 01:01 am
You make the grave mistake of thinking achievement is measured in money or fame or fortune. Where all that money fame and fortune helping anyone now all that’s left is his own conscience and some rotting decaying bones.
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