Group denies organising boycott

Press, 28 July 1976, Page 10

Group denies organising boycott

By

JOHN ROSS,

London correspondent

"1 wish It had not happened,” said Mr C de Broglio, secretary of the South African Non-Racial Open Committee for Olympic Sports, in London, commenting on the walk-out by African and Arab nations from the Olympic Games in protest against the All Black tour of South Africa. Mr de Broglio, speaking at the committee’s little office in the basement of his hotel in West London, strongly denied that his organisation had given the main impetus to the Olympic boycott “We are being described as the greatest organisers of boycotts in international sport.” he said, “but that just isn’t true. We took no part until the African nations wrote to Lord Killanin asking for New Zealand to be excluded from the Games ” The African nations, he said, had decided on the boycott without any prompting from his committee, apart from a letter to al! Olympic committees asking them to support the African stand against New Zealand. Mr de Broglio. proprietor of the Portman Court Hotel, near Hyde Park, was a South African weight-lifting champion from 1950 to 1962. He said he knew how much' Internationa! competition meant to athletes, and was sad about what had happened in Montreal. “We don t relish the idea of calling ail these countries out of the Olympic Games, and I wish it could have been averted." he said

• | The consequences were un- ■ (predictable. I “In some ways we will >lwin, but in other ways we -will have lost, because there -Iwiil be a hardened attitude ’ towards our activities.” :: Mr de Broglio, who is 46, II said he had tried every posf | sible approach to reach a Isolation which would satisfy t the African nations. “ “But it was a case of an I immovable force (the African • nations) meeting an irresistijibie bodv (Mr Muldoon).” i Asked whether he had misgivings about the disappointI ment and frustration of ' African athletes, he said: “I I i don’t think they would necessarily be disappointed. In : 11969' on behalf of the com- . mittee, 1 had to ask some ; Nigerians not to run in a i meeting at the White City. (London, in which South . Africans were competing. ' The attitude of the Nigerians . was: ’That’s no problem, we ■ won’t run’.” Could the African boycott i' of the Games not have been I organised in a more considerate manner, avoiding the • frustrations of having to reorganise the programme at i‘the last minute? “I think maybe it could • have been, and should have been better co-ordinated,’’ said Mr de Broglio. “If we had organised it. perhaps we would have done it differently.” Why pick on New’ Zealand? “Because New Zealand happened to send a sports .team to South Africa in Olympic year.” he said. “The

previous Government had taken a completely different attitude, and tried to discourage teams from going. The change of attitude was very disappointing to Africans.” Mr de Broglio emphasised that the committee was an entirely voluntary organisation, with no paid-up membership, “just a few people who are involved sportsmen in the South African situation.” The London members are ■a schoolteacher, a deputy head-master, a decorator. a hotel proprietor, a clerk, and a school caretaker. “Most of the work is done by two or three of us” he said. “We meet after work, type letters out, and do things very much on a part-time basis.” He agreed it would be fair to describe the committee as a minority pressure group, and said that although the organisation had no popular support in Britain, it did in South Africa. The group was largely financed by the International Defence and Aid Fund, and money sent to the committee was first approved by donor governments for this purpose. Mr de Broglio produced a statement of the committee’s income and expenditure for the year ended March 31, 1974. The total income was $3700, about $1260 of which was spent on travel. Of fears that the African boycott at Montreal could

cause the abandonment of 1 the Commonwealth Games, ] and in athletes’ increasingly being used as political i pawns, Mr de Broglio said:|i "I certainly hope that does I not happen. South Africa ; has been a cancer in world i sport, and is becoming more ; and more provocative, but I ' don’t think it is inevitable 1

that sportsmen will political pawns.” He disagreed with a statement attributed to Mr Denjnis Brutus, that there would be a “black-and-white split” at the next Commonwealth Games, but added that the problems would persist until South Africa was expelled from all sports.