S. African minister calls for racial transformation of sports

South Africa's Minster of Sports and Recreation, Fikile Mbalula on Monday called for the racial transformation of the national rugby team, affectionately known as Springboks.

The minister said the team should be made up of at least 50 percent coloured players at the next Rugby World Cup.

Mbalula threatened to take action against the South Africa Rugby Union (SARU) if the colored representation target is not reached.

"SARU has four years to take heed of the call," Mbalula said. "It is important to note that half of the next World Cup players need to be players of the colour," he added.

The minister said his government would not support a team that is not transformed, and "will not recognise the team if they fail to transform."

"I'm zooming in on rugby because it's as if nothing has been done and we can't bury our heads in the sand," he said, stressing that the policy of transformation has to be implemented.

The heads of the SA Football Association (SAFA), Athletics SA (ASA), SARU, Netball SA (NSA) and Cricket SA (CSA) all signed the Eminent Person's Report (EPG) on Transformation in Sports on May 18 at South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee House, the minister disclosed.

The SA Rugby Team lost to arch rivals and eventual winner New Zealand in the World Cup semi-finals before beating Argentina in the play-off for third place.

Before the team left for the Rugby World Cup in England, South Africans had called for the team's transformation. Despite the team's failure to do so, many fans were at the OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg to see them off. The coach of the team, Heyneke Meyer dropped most of black payers and replaced them with 13 white players in the national squad.

The 15 starting players during the World Cup included only two black players, Tendai Mtwarira and Bryan Habana and a further three non-white players (Siya Kolisi, Lwazi Mvovo and Trevor Nyakane) were placed as replacements during the game.

"I said on May 18 that the Springbok national team would not have been able to meet the targets but we agreed with SARU on 50/50 (in the future)," Mbalula said.

However, some South Africans demand immediate transformation.

"The Minister of Sport, has again let down South Africans, who want to see real transformation in rugby. The minister makes all kinds of excuses for SARU and the Ministry has done very little to have effective transformation in sports.

"We do not care about the agreements and the commitments, we care about the team and whether, what we see is a fair reflection of the form of players in SA rugby,"said Sizwe Pamla, spokesperson of the Congress of the South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

"This is not 1996 when we may not have had our star players in the system because of Apartheid," Pamla said. "This is 2015, where we still see our black players not getting selected, and when they selected they are not given time on the field of play."

"We are losing trust in the Minister and his capacity and commitment to rugby transformation. Most of these sporting codes have been allowed to undermine transformation," Pamla added.

But others don't support Pamla's assertion. "South Africa is more addicted to the drama of race in rugby than developing its people into becoming a nation of winners," said former Springbok player Kaya Malotana.

The composition of the team has also divided the country along racial lines. "Surely how can many white people in the Springbok team represent the 90 percent of black people in the country? It's totally absurd," said a University of Johannesburg law student, Thando Moyo.

However, his fellow student, Oscar Smith said, "If the white players are doing good, they should not be replaced with blacks for the sake of transformation. The selection should be based on merit not colour, after all, if the teams wins. It's for the country's good not individuals." Endit