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It's OFF! Cosatu suspends Bok v All Blacks protest

Cape Town - The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) announced on Friday that they have suspended their protest which would've taken place at Saturday's Rugby Championship match between the Springboks and All Blacks at Newlands.

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The trade union was threatening to picket at the match in Cape Town and demanded that all Springbok matches be broadcast on SABC and not exclusively on DSTV.

SA Rugby concluded on Friday a meeting held over two days in Cape Town with the Ministry of Sport and Recreation and Cosatu over broadcast rights.

"COSATU has scored a great victory for South Africans, who in future will now be able to see national teams live on SABC, the national public broadcaster," a Cosatu statement read, as uploaded by ENCA.com.

"Government and SARU have agreed with COSATU on making sport accessible to all South Africans. The only party that has so far failed to agree to the majority of poor people getting to see rugby live was SuperSport.

"This means tomorrow's game will not be shown live on SABC. SuperSport in the meeting decided to put profit and greed before the interest and well being of ordinary South Africans.

"... The protest planned for tomorrow at Newlands is therefore suspended and will not take place. The federation and its entire membership hereby wishes our National Rugby team, the Springboks, well in their game tomorrow against New Zealand."

SA Rugby stated that the meeting ended in "very good spirit" and that there was "progress" made.

"We agreed to meet again with all the relevant stakeholders and to engage with them in terms of the mechanics of the broadcasting of local rugby matches in future, as well as the funding of sport," said SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux.

Kick-off on Saturday is at 17:05.

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