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ABOUT US

The eLAN Rugby Legends is a group of ex-Springbok and Provincial rugby players who have formed a charitable trust. The initial purpose of the trust is to raise funds for the development of rugby at grass roots and Club rugby thus providing a vehicle for the ex-players to put something back into rugby.

Today the eLAN Legends has grown into a full blown social awareness charity using Sport as the catalyst to bring people together and then evolving their sport aspirations as well as educating them about Health, wealth and social characteristics. We have embarked on a sustainable Legacy Park project which has become our flagship, whereby over a 10 year period we are raising One Billion Rands to build 400 multi-purpose facilities in the economically disadvantaged communities to help our country solve their sport and social challenges and as a consequence will feed 500 000 street kids PER DAY.

John Allan (ex-Scottish and Springbok Hooker) is the CEO of the eLan South African Rugby Legends (SARLA) and through his leadership and the generous sponsorship of eLan, SARLA have achieved the following milestones over the past 6 years:

  • Held over 60 Development Clinics around the country and have coached approx 45 000 previously disadvantaged players.

  • Raised in excess of R5 000 000 through various charity fundraising events, which has been used for charitable causes, as well as over R30 000 000 in sponsorship and this money has been used for the development of sport at grassroots level.

  • To increase the profile of the Legends brand overseas, SARLA have played international rugby matches against many other Legends Teams, including Scotland (2003), Pumas and England (2004), Irelands, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand as well as participating in the World Classics Tournament in Bermuda in 2005. In 2006, we played Zimbabwe in Harare and hosted the World Rugby Legends Festival in Durban and were back in Bermuda for the Classics later that year. Namibia were next in 2007, The Wooden Spoon Lions Legends & Scotland Legends in Edinburgh took place in 2008 and the highlight of 2009 was the hosting of the British & Irish Lions Legends in Durban on the eve of the first Test match.

  • Launched a series of Rugby/Sport and Social development programs which are sustainable within the sporting circles and communities - these programs are for the benefit of ALL SPORTS and can be manipulated accordingly. Below explains our programs which are up and running, Legends Iqhawe and Adopt a school policy will work closely with the sporting codes and Legacy Parks and Street Kids programs will work closely with government bodies, sporting codes, charities and corporates.

    A dream . . .

    Every great idea or vision starts off as a seed that, with time and nurturing, grows into a beautiful flower. The Legends concept is one of those visions.

    Legends Background
    John Allan, Gavin Varejes and a group of their contemporaries had a dream and were prepared to give the time and effort, however they needed water to germinate the seed - or in this case, financial backing. It was with another good friend, Greg Petzer from Astrapak, that Gerald Sweidan’s name came up and an appointment was duly made.

    John tells how the Legends concept evolved and became a reality: “I had worked with Gerald early on in my career and knew him to be passionate and dedicated with a desire to achieve. From our first meeting we realised we shared the same character traits, and that the vision Gerald had was similar to the one I had for rugby. We reminisced about his dad Doc Sweidan, who was the Bok and Natal doctor for three decades, and through our memories and dreams for the future, Legends was born.

    What SARLA has achieved for under-privileged and club rugby since inception (over the last 3 years) is nothing short of remarkable, all of which would not have been possible without the substantial support and commitment of former Springboks, first class rugby players, coaches, referees, business associates and sponsors, all of whom contribute enthusiastically without any financial reward… you are all absolute Legends! On behalf of the entire SARLA committee, we thank you sincerely.
    Gavin Varejes (President: SARLA)


    "The initial purpose of the Legends brand world wide is to highlight the need to support amateur rugby at all levels. Most money generated by rugby goes towards the professional code of the game which caters for less than 1% of the players. This has led to the neglect of the amateur code on a world wide scale. It is now time to focus on the full spectrum of rugby from schoolboys at grassroots level to the veteran players who have played the game for over 30 years for fun.

    "Today the eLAN Legends has grown into a full blown social awareness charity using Sport as the catalyst to bring people together and then evolving their sport aspirations as well as educating them about Health, wealth and social characteristics. We have embarked on a sustainable Legacy Park project which has become our flagship, whereby over a 10 year period we are raising One Billion Rands to build 400 multi-purpose facilities in the economically disadvantaged communities to help our country solve their sport and social challenges and as a consequence will feed 500 000 street kids PER DAY.”
    John Allan (CEO: SARLA)


    SARLA Programs

    Legacy Parks
    On the back of soccer World Cup 2010 whereby organizations would wish to leave a legacy behind, we have launched a project to build facilities in disadvantage communities and make them sustainable

    Legends Academy
    The main objective of the Academy is to identify talent at school and sub-union level in the Border region, for admission of players between the ages of 18 and 21 years.

    Street Kids Crime Prevention
    After a series of meetings between National Police Commissioner and his SAPS strategic team, together with other sporting Legends bodies we have launched the Street Kids Crime Prevention Program.

    Adopt-A-School
    Our initial objective was for traditional schools to adopt players of talent and give them bursaries etc, however we soon learnt that there was a bigger picture and more sustainable as well as easier to monitor and control.

    Iqhawe Program
    Through SARLA's many development clinics where rugby development was the major focus, we decided to raise the bar and take our development program to a new level, which would have a major impact on the type of rugby players that we wished to churn out.