London Irish Rugby

Watch the latest highlights

Debate Related To Racism Crops Up In South African Rugby

The South African Rugby team that defeated the Australian Rugby team at the Rugby Championships on the 27th of September, 2014 included Teboho Mohoje. Mohoje was selected to be a part of the team before the expert player Schalk Burger.

This selection has surely raised the debate related to racism once again in South Africa which is trying really hard to forget its Apartheid past.

Mohoje had earlier not been selected for the matches against New Zealand, Australia and Argentina because white players such as Warren Whiteley and Juan Smith were preferred. The media in South Africa had taken up this issue very seriously and the media had put forward this vital question: Are the players in South African Rugby team only selected on the basis of their skin color?

When Mohoje was selected to play against Wallabies in Cape Town before Schalk Burger, Heyneke Meyer (coach of Springboks) had to really defend this decision in the best possible manner claiming that Mohoje was selected truly on the basis of merit and not his skin color.

Teboho Mohoje played for around fifty-five minutes during the match and was then replaced by Burger. Meyer said that he was very happy to see that the crowd applauded for Mohoje which makes it clear that Mohoje played well and had made South Africa proud.

Captain of Springboks- Jean de Villiers said that the South African media insulted certain players by claiming that they were chosen just on the basis of their race. However, he thinks the way these players performed prove to the world that they were chosen on merit and no other criteria.

More importantly, South African Rugby Union is planning to create quotas in order to increase the number of non-white players in Springboks. Some people are supporting this decision whereas some people are completely against this newly designed racial quota system.