{"id":827057,"date":"2025-06-26T15:32:06","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T13:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=827057"},"modified":"2025-06-26T16:01:37","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T14:01:37","slug":"the-1995-springbok-captain-who-worked-for-fnb-and-started-his-own-sports-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/827057\/the-1995-springbok-captain-who-worked-for-fnb-and-started-his-own-sports-company\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1995 Springbok\u00a0captain who worked for FNB and started his own sports company"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Francois Pienaar led the Springboks to their first Rugby World Cup victory 30 years ago and has gone on to work at FNB and start his own sports company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pienaar was born in Vereeniging into a working-class Afrikaner family. After finishing high school in Witbank, he won an athletic scholarship to Rand Afrikaans University (now University of Johannesburg), where he studied law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He made his provincial debut for Transvaal Province in 1989 and joined the South Africa squad in 1993 after being readmitted to World Rugby following the end of apartheid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He would become Springbok captain in his first test following the retirement of captain Naas Botha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite South Africa’s poor international ranking in 1995, the team won the 1995 Rugby World Cup on home soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He accepted the Webb Ellis trophy from President Nelson Mandela, who donned his number, and declared that the trophy was for 43 million South Africans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week later, Pienaar led 13 Transvaal players on a strike against the Transvaal Rugby Football Union, calling for improved benefits and compensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SARFU then fired Pienaar and his fellow strikers, but the decision was quickly reversed, and their demands were met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His international rugby career would end in 1996 after he was accused of faking an injury. Despite calls for his return, he declined and finished his international career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pienaar then moved to Britain, where he became a player-coach for the London-based Saracens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life after Rugby <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
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Matt Damon and Francois Pienaar<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Pienaar retired as a player in 2000 and became the CEO of the Saracens. Around the same time, he co-authored “The Rainbow Warrior,” his autobiography with Edward Griffiths, which was published in 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was involved in charity work with organisations such as the Sargent Cancer Care for Children at the Royal Marsden Hospital, the Children’s Haematology and Oncology Clinic and the Reach for a Dream Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire in 2000. In 2002, he left the Saracens and returned to South Africa, settling in Cape Town with his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After returning to South Africa, he joined First National Bank (FNB) as a strategic business development manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He played a key role in the group’s various sponsorships and the bank’s involvement in its university and school rugby sponsorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2004, he was appointed CEO of the Rugby World Cup Bid Committee to secure South Africa’s right to host the event in 2011. South Africa lost out to New Zealand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He then shifted focus to become the Provincial Chairman of First National Bank in the Western Cape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With his love of rugby, Pienaar became the CEO of the FNB Varsity Cup, which involves the country’s top rugby-playing universities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2009, he followed his passion for sports, media, and entertainment and started Advent Sport Entertainment and Media (ASEM), while continuing to work on FNB’s sponsorships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the media side, he also worked as a pundit for ITV Sport during the Rugby World Cups in 2007, 2011 and 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oscar-winner Matt Damon portrayed him in the 2009 Clint Eastwood film Invictus, which depicted the South African national team winning the 1995 World Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With his focus on giving back to the community, Pienaar is also the founder and CEO of Make a Difference (MAD).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company’s scholar support network enables it to provide administrative, medical, and psychological support, as well as opportunities for personal development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francois Pienaar photos<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Source: Planet Rugby<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
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Source: Adidas<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
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Source: Insurane Chat<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
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Source: MAD<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n
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Varsity Cup Celebrations<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Francois Pienaar is famous for guiding South Africa to its first Rugby World Cup victory. Since then, his career has branched into the banking and media industries. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":827096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[76,7456,22770,22769,22767],"class_list":["post-827057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-fnb","tag-francois-pienaar","tag-invictus","tag-matt-damon","tag-saracens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827057"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":829633,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827057\/revisions\/829633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}