Jurie Roux, SARU CEO

South African Rugby Union (SARU) CEO Jurie Roux says they had no choice but to move their Sevens World Series event away from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town.

Roux was speaking to journalists in Cape Town on Wednesday after the announcement of several new sevens signings for the Springbok Sevens team.

Cape Town will in December host the South African leg of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series for the 1st time after the event had been held at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth since 2011.

Roux said that it was imperative for South Africa to host a successful tournament as World Rugby had insisted that the event be staged at an iconic destination.

“In terms of their criteria, only the tournaments at Twickenham and Hong Kong were successful,” said Roux.

“We had over 60 000 people in PE, but we understood from World Rugby that we needed to take it somewhere different or else we would not have the World Series. And I would much rather explain to somebody that we have one, than not have one.”

Roux says he is “astonished” by how well the reception for the Cape Town event has been.

“We’re about a month away and we’re probably going to be sold out by the end of the week. We were looking at 75 – 80% to be honest. We would have been happy with that. Now we are going be on 100%, 110 000 people over 2 days.

“We’re now just going to try make it the best experience they can have, and the best experience they can have is when the Boks actually win the medal on Sunday.”