SA rugby supporters can be fickle. When the Boks perform well, praise is heaped on the team and coach, but when they play poorly, criticism is dished out by the bucketful.
Former Springbok captain (19651970) Dawie de Villiers, who Britannica Encyclopaedia calls "one of the sport's greatest scrumhalves", says he won't judge new coach Peter de Villiers's (no relation) performance so far.
The coach had a rough start with consecutive defeats at the hands of the Wallabies and All Blacks. But the semi retired Dawie de Villiers, a cabinet minister in the last two National Party (NP) governments as well as under Nelson Mandela, and SA ambassador to the United Kingdom, says SA's 42-6 trumping of England last month was a "superb" ending to a long and hard season. He says the nation must give the new coach a fair chance to prove himself.
Another sphere where De Villiers distinguished himself was in tourism. He served as environmental affairs & tourism minister under Mandela's government of national unity and under the last white government.
In 1998 he was named deputy secretary-general of the UN World Tourism Organisation (WTO). Working from his Stellenbosch residence, he is still responsible for a number of bodies in the organisation, among them chairmanship of the strategy committee and the world committee of ethics in tourism. His secretariat is based in Spain, but technology allows this setup to work well.
On tourism and the 2010 soccer World Cup, De Villiers says the global tourism industry is struggling at the moment as a result of the economic downturn. The industry has been through huge growth. Just after World War 2, 25m people travelled internationally. By 2007, the figure had ballooned to 903m.
Will the global slowdown affect SA's hosting of the sports event? Not much, says De Villiers. "The World Cup is still a little distance away," he says. "People around the world will also put their hands deeper into their pockets to attend the event. It comes only every four years."
However, he emphasises the significance of SA "getting its act together" in the run-up to the event. Sport and tourism bodies have to work together to promote the country, he says.
De Villiers, who played a leading role in the negotiations between the NP and the ANC, says the new ANC breakaway party is probably good for democracy.
When he is not doing WTO work, he spends the time with his grandchildren, reads and plays golf. He also spends quite a bit of time at a house he has near Langebaan, on the West Coast.
Ranking the Analysts 2009
