Govt blocks S.A.

Press, 18 October 1976, Page 22

Govt blocks S.A.

tour moves NZPA Staff corres. Buenos Aires

Repeated attempts by the Argentine Rugby Union to renew contacts with South Africa are being blocked by Argentina’s military government.

There has been no rugby contact between the two countries since a Buenos Aires club toured there in 1973 and after that tour, the Government ordered the president of the Argentine union to be replaced.

There have been three changes of government since then, but the policy has stayed the same. “We apply regularly to have the Springboks or some South African team here or for us to go there,” a member of the union’s tours committee, Mr Eric Kember, said yesterday. “All the requests so' far have been turned down, the most recent was a month ago.” Authorities at the Government’s Ministry of Sport have told the union that Argentina must be consistent in its opposition to apartheid.

Mr Kember. a second cousin of the 1967-70 All Black, Gerald Kember, said the Argentine union owed South African rugby a great deal. “There has been a big improvement in our rugby in the past 10 years and the sport is now growing fast, and a lot of that is due to South Africa,” he said.