Springboks players Elton Jantjies practice kicking at the Cape Town stadium. File picture: Phando Jikelo/African News Agency (ANA)
by Avril Harding
The conduct of Elton Jantjies in any place in the world was wrong and should in no manner be sugar-coated.
However, let me speak from what I have personally observed in Springbok players’ behaviour.
As a former Member of Parliament, I was during the period 2004 to 2007 regularly invited to the SA Rugby Union (Saru) president’s suite to watch international home games of the Springboks.
Saru staff were under pressure to ensure the Saru president’s suite is always filled to capacity with politicians, business leaders, etc.
Being a guest of the Saru president also gave me entry to the post-game formal dinner which both teams attend. It was easy for my wife and I to attend international games at all the SA stadiums due to my parliamentary travel benefits.
It was standard practice for young women to accompany the Springbok players to the post-game dinner and the mostly Afrikaner moms would actually bring their daughters dressed up to these events.
At some stadiums, it was almost like a meat market judging by the manner in which these young women were paraded and proffered at Springbok post-game dinners.
I personally observed on numerous occasions a number of known married Springbok players being inappropriately “friendly” with the young women.
Some of the Springboks whose conduct I observed during those years were known married men and some of them are now highly regarded analysts and commentators for DStv. For a Loftus game between the Springboks and Samoa, I passed my tickets on to a friend who took their beautiful daughter along.
Fortunately, I warned them, because on the Monday my friend phoned to thank me and declare her disgust at the behaviour of one such commentator / analyst who was a senior Springbok then.
Apparently, this married senior Springbok was quite forceful in his amorous intentions towards my friend’s daughter, after he had clearly consumed too much alcohol.
Saru team management was always present and the conduct I describe happened in full view and without reproach.
This could possibly be because access to post-game dinners is a tightly controlled affair and this aspect has not changed. Let me also add that not all Springboks behaved in this manner.
In the case of Jantjies, it would appear the Saru management has suddenly and belatedly developed a set of selected morals while previously having been totally blind.
The way in which Jantjies’s conduct is presented is as if the Springbok team has always been a church boy choir.
The most pertinent feature of the polemic is that the Afrikaans press is making quite a meal out of the entire sordid affair.
I am left wondering that, should Siya Kolisi ever falter and stray, how this same Afrikaans press and Afrikaner support base will rejoice at his inelegant departure?
* Avril Harding, Former Member of Parliament, Independent Democrats.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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