There was a moment when Sitho Mdlalose, CEO of Vodacom, stood in the stands at Loftus Versfeld on the evening before the historic Vodacom United Rugby Championship Grand Final between the Vodacom Bulls and Glasgow Warriors, and it wasn’t hard to imagine the stars above him in the Pretoria night sky aligning for something greater.
“It’s been incredible,” he said of the third consecutive Vodacom United Rugby Championship Grand Final in South Africa, and with this particular final drawing an astounding 50 000 fans.
“Three seasons ago, the thought of us transitioning from Super Rugby to a new competition where our fans don’t know about teams like Munster and the Glasgow Warriors, and then on top of this other competitions such as the Investec Champions Cup and the EPCR Challenge Cup – we always knew it would take people time to catch up to it.
“To then be at this point where we have hosted a third Vodacom United Rugby Championship Grand Final in South Africa, and most recently a sell-out final at Loftus Versfeld – it’s phenomenal,” said Mdlalose.
The first three seasons of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship have indeed aligned with so much of what has been a wave of South African rugby success globally.
But for Mdlalose, it’s the bigger story around this association with rugby and a company’s journey that is even more compelling.
This year Vodacom turned 30. When Vodacom was launched in 1993, Ian McIntosh was the coach of a Springbok team taking its first steps back into international competition and which had not yet united the country like never before with their 1995 Rugby World Cup triumph. Nelson Mandela had not yet pulled on a Springbok jersey. Millions of South Africans had not yet voted in their first democratic election. Rassie Erasmus was just about to start his own rugby playing career with the Free State, and Siya Kolisi was a two-year-old on the streets of Zwide with a destiny waiting to unfold that he could never have imagined.
Now, 30 years later, Vodacom and South African rugby can look back on a journey that has changed people and changed a country. And for Mdlalose, there is a definite link between a sport that can take a man from a township and make him a global icon and from a farm to a Rugby World Cup hero, and a company that is desperate to ensure that nobody is left behind in the search for a brighter future.
“When I look at the way Vodacom has changed, not just from our products and services but also the people who make up Vodacom and our customers and the way they’ve changed, the way we’ve gone into different demographics at high, middle and lower income areas, I look at all of this and then I look at South African rugby and I see the parallel. The parallel of the South African story and of what’s happened over the past 30 years. If you look at the magic of the South African story, it feels like a Vodacom story and it also feels like a South African rugby story. So all three parallels really align.
“Being part of an occasion like this Grand Final where we had families and people being inspired beyond what you might imagine for a rugby match is incredible. For Vodacom to be a part of this is pretty special.”
The post Vodacom and rugby, and the remarkable story of South Africa appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
Src: sarugbymag.co.za
