Did SA Rugby drop the ball on André Esterhuizen racial controversy?

The South African Rugby Union (SARU) is being criticised for its silence on the André Esterhuizen racial controversy.

"It is a pertinent issue in South Africa, racism, and especially using the K-word to an opposing coach at the time, which is highly unacceptable," said sports journalist Mubeen Mohamed.

He strongly believes SA Rugby should have openly addressed the matter surrounding Esterhuizen, who was appointed Springbok captain for the recent Test match against Australia in Perth, rather than allowing an incident from 14 years ago to resurface without a clear response from the organisation.

Mohamed noted that Esterhuizen was only 18 when he allegedly made the comments and subsequently served a suspension.

"He has obviously played professional rugby for 14 years. That happened when he was 18 years old... we got to firstly consider that. He was young at the time. When you're young, you make a lot of mistakes. You say things that you regret later."

Mohamed added that Esterhuizen currently plays for and captains the Sharks, a team he described as one of the most transformed.

"He has played overseas as well, and he's never had any other racial incidents that we know of."

Mohamed said SA Rugby’s handling of the controversy has been a bigger problem.

"I'm so disappointed in SA Rugby and the leadership group. We haven't heard any statement from Mark Alexander, from Rian Oberholzer, or any senior person that works in the media department.

"As mentioned, they were unaware of it, but what they should have done is maybe do some research, give a statement to the public, say, we apologise, or we are aware of it, or we were not aware of it; we've only been told about the situation now. So, I think that should have been done.

"We must remember that South Africa: we have a deep history in rugby, in particular as Black players and coloured players being marginalised very badly.

"This is not only one situation that's happened in the past as well. We've got to remember these things. Going forward, we need to build. So how do we build if things happen all the time? The same thing happens all the time. How do you grow?

"At some stage, there's got to be a line ... enough is enough. We can't have this anymore in South African rugby, whether it's at schoolboy level, provincial level or national level.

"SA rugby needs to address this. They need to come out and apologise to the fans."

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