---
title: "Episode 32: Ed Coetzee – The business of rugby"
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "Articles"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-10-07-episode-32-ed-coetzee-the-business-of-rugby/"
published: "2020-10-07T00:00:00"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 170
---

# Episode 32: Ed Coetzee – The business of rugby

Published 7 October 2020, 02:00 SAST

## Content

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## Episode 32: Ed Coetzee - The business of rugby

One of rugby’s great myths is that the forwards are always the unthinking, heavy lifters, while the backs have all the brains. It probably comes from a small sample of players back in the sport’s sepia-toned past, but times have changed. Sharks CEO Eduard Coetzee was a prop – and a very good one at that – he played Super Rugby for the Sharks, for South Africa ‘A’ and spent eight years playing in France for Biarritz. He is anything but unthinking or brainless, and as rugby enters a new post-Covid-19 world, the challenges that the game faced before the pandemic ravaged the planet, have been exacerbated by six months of lockdown. Previous business models have to be torn up and re-engineered. For the next few years at least, professional rugby in South Africa and globally too, will be in a precarious position. It will take bold, innovative young leaders such as Coetzee to navigate a way through these turbulent times.

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