SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux says they will aim to retain the hosting rights of the Cape Town Sevens for another three years.

Roux confirmed on Wednesday that they will re-tender a bid in order for Cape Town to continue hosting the South African leg of the World Rugby Sevens Series.

The highly popular event is sold out for this weekend, with the current hosting rights set to run until 2018, when the Cape Town tournament will be in its fourth year.

Roux said SA Rugby would now look to ensure that the event remains in the Mother City for another three years beyond that.

‘This is one of the most successful tournaments and every year there is an internal award, decided on by the players, coaches and all of the teams that participate in the series, and we have now won that award for the third time as being the best sevens tournament.

‘I think it is naturally a no-brainer [to keep the Cape Town Sevens], but I also said that about the World Cup,’ he added in a wry reference to South Africa’s unsuccessful 2023 World Cup bid.

Roux explained that a sub-committee would assess a multi-faceted evaluation report before a recommendation was then put forward for a final decision.

‘Basically they go on the criteria of attendance, player evaluation, team evaluation and viewership numbers.’

According to Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille, the 2016 tournament brought in R432m to the local economy.

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