S.A. tour plans hang in balance

Press, 27 November 1979, Page 32

S.A. tour plans hang in balance

NZPA London Controversial plans for a British rugby tour of South Africa — which critics say might lead to Britain’s ousting from the Olympics — hung in the balance after a meeting of the four Home Unions came to no decision. The four deferred a decision on grounds that although the tour is officially on Britain’s rugby calendar, an official invitation has not yet been received from the South African Rugby Board. British sports authorities are worried about protests against Britain’s sporting links with white-ruled South Africa, which intensified when the South African Barbarians integrated rugby team toured Britain last month.

They fear that black African nations will seek to

have Britain barred from next year’s Moscow Olympics, by threatening to boycott the games themselves, if the British go ahead with the tour next summer. The British have protested in vain to African nations that they cannot control the actions of individual sports organisations. The Government wants the rugby unions to comply with the 1976 Gleneagles Agreement, committing signatories to shun sporting contacts with South Africa.

A decision on the rugby tour may be delayed until after a British Sports Council investigating team returns in the new year from South Africa, where it plans to look into South African claims that apartheid, or race segregation in sports, is on the way out.