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South African Rugby Union will meet on Monday to discuss statements attributed to Springbok flanker Luke Watson regarding South African rugby, his team mates and the national jersey.
"If the reports are accurate this is a very serious matter indeed," Andy Marinos, SA Rugby's manager of national teams and acting managing director, said in an official news release on Sunday.
"But we can't pre-judge the matter on the strength of media reports and we can make no definitive statement until we have in our hands what evidence there may be."
Watson quoted
Watson was quoted in an article on website rugby365.com as saying that "the problem with SA Rugby is that it is controlled by Dutchmen (Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans)".
He said the "bigger picture" kept him from vomiting on the Springbok jersey and that "the men who sit on my left and right of me in the change room despise me for who I am".
"We need to see the bigger picture and realise that the here and now is not just the here and now, but the here and now only exists because of those who went before us and because of those who are still to come," he was quoted as saying during a rugby festival at the University of Cape Town earlier this month.
"Me having to wear the Springbok jersey, to keep myself from vomiting on it, because there is a bigger picture, because men and women have bled for me to get there."
Anti-racism
Watson's father Cheeky was an outspoken anti-racism activist during the apartheid era who declined the opportunity to participate in Springbok trials as a promising player because of his convictions and has made no secret of his displeasure with the game's current administration.
