Mbalula: 'counting black Springbok players' trivialises transformation

BDLive reports that Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula urged the Springbok coaches to accept African National Congress secretary-general Gwede Mantashe's criticism of the lack of transformation in the Springbok team as constructive, and said the remarks were valid given the need to boost transformation in sport.

Last week, Mantashe criticised the Springbok coaching team, and specifically head coach Heyneke Meyer, for selecting only a few black players in his team and suggested the coaches were under the impression that rugby was a "white sport."

Mbalula reiterated, however, that transformation was a process, rather than an occurrence that happened overnight. Recently the Minister commended the South African Rugby Union (Saru) for convening a transformation indaba, although he admitted at the meeting that transformation was occurring at a slow pace. He also said transformation should not be trivialised by simply counting the number of black players in the team.

The Springboks are in the UK for their year-end tour, BDLive says.

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