Springbok skipper Corne Krige said on Wednesday players are taking legal advice over images screened around the world showing South Africa’s national rugby team naked at a military-style ”boot camp”.
Photographs taken from a ”home video” were printed on the front page of most major newspapers in South Africa, and the images were screened around the world, causing an outcry in South Africa and calls for the heads of the team management, including coach Rudolf Straeuli.
”We are getting legal advice but it doesn’t mean that we will take legal steps. We want to keep our options open,” Krige told the Afrikaans daily Beeld.
South African pay-to-view channel M-Net screened the first live pictures of Kamp Staaldraad (Camp Steel-Wire) on Sunday night, showing the national squad crawling naked through the African bush.
The pictures have been broadcast internationally by Sky News television.
They show naked players carrying railway tracks and tractor tyres and standing in a freezing dam, with their hands covering their private parts.
Sports Minister Ngconde Balfour summoned rugby chiefs to an urgent meeting on Wednesday to find out more about the camp.
Krige said he would also speak to an unnamed player, who has threatened to go court over the broadcast.
”It will be better for us to take legal steps as a team,” Krige said. ”We have a few options and will discuss them Friday when the player of the year is appointed.”
The Springboks were thrashed 29-9 by New Zealand in a World Cup quarterfinal clash after the South Africans lost a crucial pool game to England. — Sapa-AFP