Minister of Sport and Recreation Ngconde Balfour has called for an urgent meeting with rugby administrators to discuss recent reports about the Springbok rugby team’s ”extraordinarily unorthodox” preparations for the 2003 World Cup.
In a statement on Sunday, Balfour said: ”Reports emerging from the Springbok camp oblige SA Rugby and the South African Rugby Football Union to act immediately and decisively by taking the public into [their] confidence through revealing complete details of all team preparations for the World Cup.”
Newspaper reports said that as part of the preparation for the Rugby World Cup 2003, players attended a training camp where they were stripped naked, deprived of sleep and food and ordered into a lake to pump up rugby balls underwater while guns were allegedly pointed at them.
Balfour said: ”I have already requested administrators to meet me this week and will extend this request to members of the team as well if I deem it necessary.
”While I am reserving an opinion on the matter at present, I regard the reports as serious enough to merit urgent intervention.
”It serves no one’s interests, least of all that of rugby and the players involved, to have a cloak of secrecy around events that the public are seeking answers to.”
Only the players and team management would be able to respond to ”speculative reports relating to what appears to have been rather extraordinarily unorthodox team preparations”.
If players had been forbidden to speak about their experiences, Balfour said the restrictions should ”be lifted without the fear of reprisals against them”.
The Springboks were ousted from the Rugby World Cup quarterfinals after a humiliating 29-9 loss. — Sapa
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