Middle East & Africa | Race and rugby

Green and blacks

Should the national team reflect the colours of the country or its players?

Not representative

WHEN Nelson Mandela strode onto a field in 1995—a year after the birth of South Africa’s democracy—images of him wearing the green and gold of the national rugby team became a stirring symbol of his commitment to racial unity. His celebration of the World Cup victory of the Springboks that year before a crowd of mostly white Afrikaners prompted chants of “Nelson, Nelson!”

Two decades on, little racial unity accompanies the Springboks’ appearance at the 8th Rugby World Cup in England. Why, critics ask, are only nine players in the total squad of 31 non-white, when only 10% of the population is white? Worse still, in a country that remains obsessed by minute gradations of race, why are only four of those nine African, rather than of mixed race? Xenophobes splutter too: of those four black Africans, the one who plays most often originally came from Zimbabwe.

Embarrassed, the government has stood behind the team and its conservative white coach, Heyneke Meyer. His response, under fire, has been to swear undying loyalty to the country. None of that has stopped the invective. One of the country’s senior black newspaper editors has sworn to support only the Springboks’ opponents during the tournament: a twist on an apartheid-era tradition among many mixed-race rugby fans, who to this day still cheer for New Zealand’s multiracial All Blacks.

There is some injustice in the criticism. Not many black children play rugby in South Africa. Even in the pockets where it is popular, precious few black children get anything like the facilities and coaching available at white schools. Oregan Hoskins, the president of the South African Rugby Union, reckons that in the country’s second most populous province, KwaZulu-Natal, only 3% of African schoolboys play the game. Nationally, Mr Hoskins points out, “Only about 10% of schoolboys ever see a rugby ball at primary school…it is from that tiny subset of potential players that Springboks emerge.”

So fierce is the pressure on rugby to promote more black players that the sport’s governors hope fully half the Springboks will be black by 2019. Given the tiny pool of young black players learning the game, critics say that aim can be achieved only if the team lowers its ambitions. Until its startling defeat by Japan in its first game of the tournament, South Africa ranked third in the world.

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline "Green and blacks"

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