SA Rugby CEO Riaan Oberholzer has confirmed that South Africa will launch its first professional women’s domestic competition in 2026.
This is a landmark step for the game after the Springbok Women reached the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time.
That success came with only one professional team, the Bulls Daisies, in the domestic system. Oberholzer says the time has come to change that.
“With regard to the professional league, we’re in the final stages of putting it in place and we will kick it off in 2026,” he said after the Boks’ return from England.
“If we don’t step up, we are going to, again, have to try to pick up the pieces in 2029 going forward.
“We have an ideal opportunity now that the girls have proved themselves … we can’t only concentrate on the men’s team, we have to build the women’s team as well and the decision we took then was to make it the second most important team in our setup in rugby.”
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Oberholzer emphasised that corporate backing will be key to sustaining professionalism.
“When we repositioned our commercial programme, we made it very clear to sponsors, you can’t come in and be involved only with a men’s team,” he explained. “If you want to be involved, you are going to sponsor the men’s team, the women’s team, the U20s, the men’s sevens, the women’s sevens. That’s the only way you’re going to get involved in being a sponsor of our national team.”
Oberholzer hinted the women’s league may start with six teams and will not mirror the men’s structures.
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