Venter quits Saracens role for family reasons

The next time Brendan Venter offers an opinion on the inadequacies and lunacies of rugby governance, it will be from the far side of the Equator. Saracens announced yesterday, very much out of the blue, that the World Cup-winning South African will return to Cape Town next month, relinquishing his post as director of rugby in favour of an arm's-length job as technical director. He intends to pay regular visits to the Watford-based club, but the day-to-day operation will be overseen by his current second-in-command, Mark McCall.

Nigel Wray, the Saracens chairman, said Venter had made his decision for family reasons. "As a club very much based on family values, we respect that decision," he said. Wray also insisted that the "direction, stability and continuity" of Saracens would be unaffected, but given the choice, last season's Premiership runners-up would far rather have kept their inspirational leader close at hand.

Venter, a medical doctor, arrived at Saracens during one of the club's annual outbreaks of internal upheaval, and many expected the unstable mix of individual outspokenness and communal disenchantment to blow the place sky high. Yet Venter had all his players on-side in a matter of weeks, and quickly turned them into one of England's most effective teams. Some of the rugby they played in the final third of last season's league campaign was deeply impressive.

Those who remained stubbornly unimpressed were the sport's disciplinarians. Twice last term, Venter was hauled before a Rugby Football Union tribunal: the first time for criticising a refereeing performance, the second for engaging a little too enthusiastically with a group of Leicester supporters at Welford Road. The latter incident earned him a ban from Twickenham and its environs on Premiership final day – a punishment widely, and rightly, seen as vindictive.

He ran into trouble again just recently, with the Heineken Cup's administrative class. Before the tournament, he had warned of impending chaos due to refereeing inconsistencies, and when he was proved right – the Saracens-Leinster game at Wembley turned out exactly the way he had predicted – he reinforced the point. Another day, another punishment. Since then, he has taken the Trappist approach to life, and English rugby has been a good deal duller as a consequence.

Edward Griffiths, the Saracens chief executive, said yesterday that the reasons behind Venter's decision to return to his GP's practice in Cape Town were entirely as advertised. "With the technology available to us, he can make a very significant contribution from South Africa, and as I expect him to come to London a couple of times a month, his input will be considerable," Griffiths said. "I should also stress that there is no question of Brendan taking another job within rugby. He remains wholly committed to Saracens."

It is, however, fair to say that the treatment Venter received from disciplinary tribunals of various stripes left him disillusioned. As one club insider said yesterday: "If he can't speak the truth, he'd rather not speak at all."