EP Rugby president suspended for two years for breaching SARU code of conduct

He is prohibited from holding any position or participating in any rugby structures under the auspices of SARU for the next two years.

Cannon appeared before an independent judicial committee over the course of 14 months on six charges relating to a speech he made in February 2022.

During the diatribe, he variously described SARU as being a racist organisation; its leadership as "selling-out" SARU; and that the Springbok was a racist emblem.

"My plea is that we must turn the South African rugby landscape upside down," Cannon said during the memorial service of former prop Godfrey Thorne.

"I did not come back to support the South African rugby establishment, because it is still very much racist.

"I know there are people who are happy to support the apartheid emblem, the racist emblem - the Springbok.

"My argument is, that emblem is equal to that flag that was waved when we made a compromise in 1995. It has the same expression; it's racist.

"Why did one institution remain and destroy true non-racialism and let us believe there was normality in society?"

The comments were subsequently published in social media and mainstream media.

A three-person Judicial Committee ruled that Cannon had clearly contravened the SARU Constitution and the SARU Code of Conduct with the intent to bring SARU into disrepute and was found guilty on those charges.

Cannon has 15 days in which to appeal the sentence, should he decide to do so.