Call for suspension of Mallett, Botha amid TV row
SPORTS and Recreation Minister Toko Xasa has called on SuperSport to suspend Nick Mallett and Naas Botha while it investigates an incident that led to former Springbok player Ashwin Willemse walking out of a studio during a live broadcast.
Willemse walked off set following comments apparently made by fellow presenters Mallett and Botha.
While exactly what led to Willemse’s unhappiness has not yet been made known, the former Bok and Lions winger made his stance clear.
“I’ve been in the game for a long time, like most of us here,” he said.
“As a player, I’ve been called a quota for a long time and I’ve worked very hard to earn the respect I have now. I’m not going to sit here and be patronised by these two individuals [Mallett and Botha] who played their rugby during the apartheid era, a segregated era.”
Mallett is a former Springbok player and coach and Botha is a former Springbok captain and flyhalf.
The incident happened after the Lions’ 42-24 win over the Brumbies in Johannesburg on Saturday.
“The continued appearance of Mallett and Botha will be seen as an endorsement of their alleged racist behaviour,” Xasa said.
SuperSport tweeted that they viewed the incident in a serious light and would investigate and interview all relevant individuals.
Xasa also condemned continued “white entitlement” in rugby.
“This behaviour of entitlement by some white South Africans who continue to think that their whiteness represents better must come to an end,” she said.
“If it was not for a barbaric nonsensical apartheid system that privileged them, we could not have implemented [a] quota system to normalise an otherwise abnormal system.”
She said Willemse was not just a former Springbok player but, in 2003, was named SA Rugby Player of the Year‚ young player of the year and players’ player of the year.
“Players like Willemse‚ [Bryan] Habana‚ [Siya] Kolisi continue to make us proud as a nation and affirm that they are not token players or quota players,” Xasa said.
Civil rights organisation AfriForum has criticised the premature “conviction” of Mallett and Botha.
AfriForum chief executive Kallie Kriel said it was regrettable that an outburst with an apparent racial undertone had happened.
He said it was especially worrisome that Xasa and DA leader Mmusi Maimane had, in their reaction to “this regrettable incident”, decided – despite no investigation into the incident yet – that Botha and Mallett should carry the blame.
“AfriForum regrets that antiwhite sentiment in the country is already so rife that white people are automatically blamed for whatever goes wrong‚” Kriel said.
Maimane tweeted yesterday: “What @Ashwinwillemse experienced is still sadly an experience for too many South Africans.
“We must build an equal society‚ where we confine to history a system of racial superiority and inferiority.” – TimesLIVE