According to this article on News24, most definitely. But now I have to disagree!
In my honest opinion, and I hope you read this Mr Komphela, I have identified one of the biggest racists left in the country.
One Mr Butana Komphela!!!!
In yet another attack on rugby in SA, he wants us to drop the Springbok emblem in search of something else. Go forbid it be a rabid leopard with green spiky hair.
Mr Komphela, have you ever stopped and considered what the Springbok means to any rugby player? Whether they are white or black, or any color in between?
To pull that green and gold jersey over your head and have the Springbok on your chest, is the ultimate goal for any rugby player, regardless of the colour of the player. Now you want to go take that away? Get real. Clean up your own act first.
He further pukes up some drivel about uniting the country under one symbol. The springbok did more for uniting our people last year than any of the other symbols. We won the world cup, and once again you could see everyone celebrating this together, regardless of colour.
Mr Komphela, you made a bold statement there, but in my opinion, the problems in South African soccer are much bigger than your perceived problems in rugby.
Crisis after crisis happens, yet you say nothing, is this because the administrators are the same colour as you? It sure looks that way.
While we're on the subject of soccer. If we did go the route of having one symbol, and that symbol be the protea, as is the standard in most other sports. How many of your soccer "boys", that's the translation I understand of the current team name, are going to be happy to play in a team named after a flower? Should I hazard a guess?
What rugby did right in my eyes, and this is probably where you picked up your issues, because you perceived the transformation to be slow. Rugby slowed their transformation, to developed players of colour with enough skill to stand their ground in the international arena. If we tossed these guys onto the field with a fired-up All Black team before they were ready, we probably would have lost the player to rugby for good, because of some injury. Rugby is a hard game, and if your body is not conditioned to take the knocks, you'll never make it through the first match in one piece. That's reality.
Rugby also had to slow their transformation to keep the team at a level where they would not lose too many supporters. Supporters are the key to any sport, especially if that sport is a business. If you lose to many of them, you may as well close said business, and go back to the club system.
Now Mr Komphela, what have you done recently to aid in the upliftment of previously disadvantaged players? I've only ever heard about you spewing criticism about what's wrong, but I've never seen any news of you taking any action to help the players at the grassroots level get a step up. I'm talking about school players here, in case you missed that.
I do see the current players and administrators of the sport actually jumping in and helping, but you still sit and criticize.
Then you go on to say that the failure of the Shark players to wear "Say no to racism" on their jerseys is blatant racism from their sponsor's side. Get real sir. Have you ever stopped to think that there isn't significant racism problems in their province, and that they therefore have the choice not to make a big issue out of it, because people of all colour may be more upset by seeing that statement, than not seeing it.
I await your reply, but I definitely will not be holding my breath for it.