Boycott Blues

The South African connection

Because of South Africa's abhorrent racial policies, generations of golfers, tennis players, cricket teams and rugby clubs from that sports-minded country have endured boycotts and other sanctions. But now a number of Third World foes of apartheid have come up with a new, potentially more devastating weapon: a boycott against athletes from other nations guilty of playing in, or having other ties to, South Africa. Last month Nigeria detained three visiting British tennis pros because they had played the South African summer circuit. Guyana expelled a visiting British cricketer with South African connections, only to have the entire English team leave in a huff before the first match was played. Then, earlier this month, Trinidad canceled a planned visit by the Tampa Bay Rowdies because three of the soccer team's players come from South Africa.

A major force behind the new boycott is the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa, a loose association of sports officials in Third World nations. Three months ago, the group distributed the names of 159 athletes from 16 nations who have competed in South Africa from September to December of 1980--and urged countries to ban them. The movement has since been endorsed by a number of nations and international organizations, including the U.N. Special Committee Against Apartheid. The blacklist includes U.S. Tennis Players Stan Smith, Pat DuPre and Bob Lutz, World Boxing Association Heavyweight Champion Mike Weaver, British Golfer Nick Faldo and the entire French rugby team. Further additions are promised --possibly including Lee Trevino, who last month won a tournament in South Africa. As it is, the list is already having an impact. Lutz and Faldo have both declared that they will never again compete in South Africa. An Australian team canceled a cricketing tour there. Several leading members of the Irish rugby side have begged off their team's scheduled South African match. Says Arthur Ashe, the black former tennis star: "This is the next best thing to declaring war on South Africa."

The scope of the blacklist may soon widen to include not only athletes who have played in South Africa and those who have visited there for sporting events, but also athletes who play against South African teams on their own soil. Former World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Floyd Patterson was named simply because he attended a boxing bout held in South Africa as a spectator. The British cricketer expelled from Guyana, Robin Jackman, was so treated because he is married to a South African and spends the whiter in that country. Fearing boycotts, Australia has even refused the South African Springbok rugby team permission to land there on its way to New Zealand this summer.

While the blacklist is forging a new sensitivity among fans and athletes, it is hardly delivering a crushing blow to front-rank competitors. It is supported largely by Third World nations, where comparatively few major international sporting events occur. Still, the blacklist is resented by many athletic figures as an unnecessary intrusion of politics into sport. "Barbaric," says U.S. Boxing Promoter Bob Arum, who has helped organize fights in South Africa. U.S. Tennis Player Brian Gottfried, who is not on the list, nonetheless calls it "a damned scandal."

Ironically, the boycott comes at a time when South Africa has begun to make progress toward desegregating its sports. Blacks are still excluded from many teams and facilities. Yet an investigative group from the British Sports Council concluded that fencing, karate, judo and track and field in South Africa are so integrated that participants should be allowed to compete internationally. The same has been said of soccer, and a French team of inquiry felt likewise about boxing. Though South Africa's national pastime, rugby, remains aggressively white, the Springboks squad now has one mulatto player. However admirable the blacklist may be, many South Africans fear that it threatens to undo this progress. Warns the pro-government Johannesburg Citizen: "There will be a tendency to say 'To hell with it all, we might as well forget about mixed sport and international contacts and play the game as we wish.' " qed

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