South Africa's controversial rugby chief Louis Luyt yesterday announced his intention to quit as president of the South African Rugby Football Union (SARFU), thereby in all probability salvaging the tour by Ireland at the end of month.

"We are probably near a situation in which we can resolve the problem," South Africa's National Sports Council president Mluleki George told The Irish Times last night.

George added that the NSC would delay formally requesting the Irish and Welsh rugby union to postpone or cancel pending tours of South Africa until after an imminent meeting with the SARFU executive, minus Luyt.

The IRFU reacted with cautious optimism to yesterday's developments. "In the absence of any official comment to the contrary we can only assume that the tour is still on. We plan to leave in two weeks as originally planned," said John Redmond, an IRFU spokesman. "We will be seeking clarification from the relevant bodies this week."

Earlier yesterday Luyt signalled his intention to resign in a detailed front page interview with the Afrikaans Sunday newspaper Rapport. He cited the failure of his colleagues on SARFU's executive committee to back him in his struggle against the NSC and George as the reason for his decision.

The NSC, accusing SARFU of nepotism, malfeasance and racism, had given the entire SARFU executive committee until last Thursday to resign if it wanted to avert a concerted campaign by the NSC - which has unofficial links with the ruling African National Congress - for a re-imposition of the international boycott which isolated South African rugby during the apartheid era.

While an extraordinary SARFU meeting rejected the NSC ultimatum last Thursday, it witnessed a strong move to oust Luyt as president, with seven of the 14 member unions and eight of the 12 executive members voting in favour of his resignation. Luyt was able to avert a formal vote on a technicality: the extraordinary meeting had been called to discuss the NSC ultimatum, not Luyt's position.

Luyt's refusal to heed majority feeling in SARFU angered the NSC, which in a special meeting on Friday resolved to press ahead its isolation campaign by formally deciding to call on the Irish, Welsh and English rugby unions not to tour South Africa in the next couple of months and on their New Zealand and Australian counterparts not to compete against South Africa in the Southern Hemisphere's Tri-Nation series.

Since then, however, Luyt has reconsidered his position, which had weakened markedly by Saturday when another two provincial rugby unions, Blue Bulls and Free State, declared against him.

Luyt gave three reasons for his decision: his crumbling support base in SARFU; his reluctance to become involved in a war of attrition which could damage South African rugby; and his commitment to the rugby unions in New Zealand and Australia which had worked with him to establish the popular and lucrative Tri-Nation and Super-12 series.

Luyt is expected to officially inform SARFU of his decision to quit today, a union spokesman told The Irish Times last night. His resignation might open the door for an agreement between SARFU and the NSC which stops short of the NSC's demand for the resignation of the entire union executive.

George said that if SARFU agreed to allow the judicial commission of inquiry into the union's affairs to go ahead and to work for the "complete transformation" of South African rugby, the way might be opened for a settlement (and, by implication, a decision by the NSC to halt its campaign for the re-isolation of SA rugby).

In another move likely to advance the prospects of a rapprochement between SARFU and the NSC, President Nelson Mandela praised Luyt for the role he had played in initiating major changes in rugby in South Africa. He was referring to Luyt's role in negotiating with the ANC in the late 1980s when the organisation was routinely condemned as a "terrorist movement" by the then National Party government.