Suspended Cannon opens up about all things rugby

Sport, especially rugby, can serve a better purpose than it does at the moment. So says suspended EP Rugby president Maasdorp Cannon talking about serving as president on a voluntary basis because of his love of the sport. Unity among South Africans is fleeting, he says, lasting until the final whistle “and then it's business as usual and everybody returns to the legacy from where the Springbok derives” — and it is because of this belief that he received a two-year ban for contravening the Saru constitution and its code of conduct. Cannon was suspended for his utterances at Godfrey Thorne’s memorial service that the SA Rugby Union was a racist establishment. He also said the Springbok emblem was racist, and that Saru president Mark Alexander and his deputy, Francois Davids, were sell-outs. In September, Cannon lost an appeal to have the ban overturned. In Behind The Herald Headlines with Daron Mann this week, we speak to Cannon. The Herald