Ho hum. Another year, another race row, although it’s not often that such an evocative phrase as ”ethnic cleansing” makes it through the screening process into the public domain.
That’s what Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile accused SA Rugby of at the weekend, shortly after his brother, Mike, had labelled that organisation’s president, Brian van Rooyen, a liar who was ”in the pocket of Afrikaners”.
Springbok rugby may have undergone a transformation as far as results were concerned last year, but government observers and certain stakeholders are clearly more concerned at the continued absence of black African players in the higher echelons of the game.
One such player, Solly Tyibilika, played the last two Tests of the Springbok end-of-season tour, but was excluded from the four Super 12 squads announced on Monday. A deal was finally brokered that will see him attached to the Sharks squad, but there is no reason to suspect that he will be coach Kevin Putt’s first choice in Durban.
Van Rooyen said: ”I will be the first one to admit that since 1995 we have taken 10 steps back if not 20, but it is a continuing process and by the time we come to 2011 there should be no doubt that the Springbok team could be 15 black players.”
The key date here is 2011, for on Wednesday SA Rugby was given parliamentary backing for its 2011 World Cup bid, with a fairly strict proviso.
Butana Komphela, chairperson of the parliamentary portfolio committee on sport, said: ”The committee supports the bid but you are putting rugby into disrepute and it’s losing credibility. Let us restore its credibility and then this sport must be used as a catalyst central to the union of the people of South Africa”.
While Van Rooyen might be accused of pandering to conservative white interests in the game, the nepotistic aspect of the Stofile brothers’ comments is certain to come under even closer scrutiny. Makhenkesi is, on the surface at least, the most powerful man in South African sport, although his first year in office was notable for its diametric opposition to his immediate predecessor, Ngconde Balfour.
Balfour was the bull in a china shop, blundering into situations that would have benefited from some of the ANC’s famous quiet diplomacy. Stofile has taken a back seat on most issues until now and it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that his intrusion this time is due to filial need.
Mike Stofile is accused by SA Rugby of improper conduct, having hired a minibus taxi without permission. The minibus was subsequently rolled in an accident and written off, although Stofile claims he was at home at the time.
Stofile said he was dropped off at his Alice home at 7pm and told the driver to take the vehicle to East London as soon as possible. Four days later one of the hiring agents contacted him to inquire about the whereabouts of the minibus. Stofile eventually contacted the driver, who said that the minibus had been stolen.
Stofile has come out firing in a bid to restore his own credibility, but his actions come less than two months after he voluntarily stood down from the race to become SA Rugby vice-president.
His conciliatory speech at the time enabled Andre Markgraaff to assume the position unopposed. Markgraaff is widely perceived to be the power behind Van Rooyen’s throne and the latest shenanigans are clearly an attempt to emasculate him in some way.