Western Province and Stormers Senior Professional coach Rassie Erasmus and his lawyer friend Frikkie Erasmus are planning a new tournament of “instant” rugby that will revolutionise the game.

According to a report in the Afrikaans weekly Rapport the tournament, based on the highly success Indian Premier League (20-overs) cricket series, will attract 200 of the world’s leading players.

rugby365 reports as follows after Rapport also featured this:

The matches will be 40 minutes each – 20 minutes a half – and will be played at two of South Africa’s newly built World Cup soccer stadiums.

This event, which already has the backing of leading South African Rugby Union officials, will prevent stadiums in Cape Town and Durban from becoming white elephants.

Western Province and Sharks officials have already ruled out the possibility of moving base from their current rugby stadiums to the pricey soccer venues.

And with soccer not able to maintain the high costs of running the venues, they were looking at rugby to help bring in some much needed cash to help pay off the building costs.

The new tournament will no doubt go a long way to alleviating this problem.

The rules of this new version of the game still have to be finalised, but it has been suggested there could be restrictions on kicking, in order to produce more running rugby.

Players could earn more from appearing in the three-week competition than from their annual provincial or club contracts.

The organisers hope to attract world class stars like John Smit, Victor Matfield, Bryan Habana, Schalk Burger, Jean de Villiers, Juan Smith, Jaque Fourie, Heinrich Brüssow, Bismarck du Plessis, Richie McCaw, Daniel Carter, Phil Waugh  and James O’Connor.

Players from England, France and Argentina are also being targeted.

The tournament could take place before the Super 15 and the new franchises would be privately owned – with no association with current Super Rugby teams.

Erasmus, the coach, said the new venture would not impact on his job at the Stormers.