By Franklin Black -
July 10th 2010 @ 1:22am
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Loading ...Unlike rugby, World Cup taps support from all South Africans
The true following of football in South Africa has been clearly reflected by the FIFA 2010 World Cup. Not only is football the biggest sport in South Africa, it is the only sport with true support among the 80 percent (40 million) black population there.
Rugby union remains a pillar of the old apartheid regime, so beloved by the likes of Danie Craven.
Contrast the thousands of black faces in the crowds and in the streets with the almost exclusively white South African union crowds. The dribble we are fed that rugby union is the main sporting code of South Africa is shown up for being a mere wish of that code in competition with the real sporting choice for Africans: football.
Unless rugby union really confronts its own past in South Africa in a meaningful and honest way, that sport will never move forward except among its Afrkiaaner-dominated following.
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rugbyfuture said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:33am | Report comment
was this article worthwhile for anything other than to try and bag rugby? one obviously isnt keeping up with the developments of the game there and has no interest in it, with their star players being black, their coach brown and their officials black it seems to be catching on, or perhaps it was the lack of crowds at the world cup that amused you most? of course this is mostly because of FIFA’s bad organisational skills and ability to adapt to a poor market.
a nod to this persons profile and his favourite sports spells out this articles true intension
ozby said | July 11th 2010 @ 1:34pm | Report comment
Check the facts. There are more black people playing rugby then there are white people playing soccer. There are more black Springboks than there are white Bafana Bafana. One game stands for reconciliation and progress, the other one doesn’t. Just study the trends The blacks who entered the middle class adopt rugby and leave soccer behind them. This is the way it’s going. So whose future are you talking about?
Kurt said | July 10th 2010 @ 2:33am | Report comment
Petty and unnecessary article, doesn’t reflect well on the author. It’s hardly news that soccer is more popular amongst black South Africans whilst Rugby has strong roots amongst the white population. However last time I looked the Rugby team does have some non-white players whilst the soccer team is exclusively black – so if we’re going to start accusing South African sports of being non-inclusive, perhaps we should start there?
Andyroo said | July 10th 2010 @ 12:05pm | Report comment
Kurt South Africa have Booth who is a centre back and pretty popular.
I’m only defending Bafana Bafana’s reputation not the authors.
JF said | July 10th 2010 @ 12:13pm | Report comment
Out of a squad of how many? Most Australian Rugby fans could easily rattle off half a dozen black Springboks, yet the team is still deemed a “pillar of the old apartheid regime” by the soccer nuts.
Andyroo said | July 10th 2010 @ 12:20pm | Report comment
I don’t have a problem with Rugby, I wasn’t trying to get into a pissing contest about the make up of South African teams. Just because this authors article is divisive doesn’t mean that it then becomes open season to bag out the code he claims to support.
So I was refuting “the soccer team is exclusively black”.
Unless the s on the end was a typo your nearly as bad as the author with the use of “nuts”. I don’t see any football fans agreeing with him.
Edit: I’m pretty insulted you think I should be lumped in with the authors views ….. and don’t know on what grounds you have done so since I made it fairly clear I didn’t agree with him. Just an excuse to bash all Soccer fans is it JF?
AndyRoo said | July 10th 2010 @ 12:33pm | Report comment
First reply to this was moderated to death so I will try and be diplomatic.
I made it fairly clear I didn’t agree with the author in my first post.
I wasn’t partaking in “my code is better than your code” I was just correcting Kurts statement “the soccer team is exclusively black”.
Your trying to imply i’m a soccer nut who deems the Springboks a “pillar of the old apartheid regime” …. not the case JF and very unfair not just to me but to the other Soccer fans who have also made an effort to post on here to say they don’t agree.
kovana said | July 10th 2010 @ 12:38pm | Report comment
Its all right Andy..
Frank the Curling fan from scotland is trying to prove that he is a soccer fan from South Africa..
Yet he reminds me of a certain Poster from Planet rugby forums….. lol
JF said | July 10th 2010 @ 12:43pm | Report comment
So out of a squad of 23 for the WC, there is 1 white player, is this correct? “Exclusively Black” seems a pretty apt description to me.
Andyroo said | July 10th 2010 @ 12:47pm | Report comment
It seems we have different definitions of the word exclusive so I will leave you to carry on with your soccer bashing then.
Andyroo said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:00pm | Report comment
Actually JF I will leave something positive as well
Check out the Doco “The Team That Never Played” it’s pretty good especially Keith Broad’s story and theirs no Rugby bashing in it.
JF said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:12pm | Report comment
Andy, yes you are right, a single white player means the team is not ‘exclusively’ black, how about 95.66% black, better?
You can hardly accuse anyone of ‘soccer-bashing’ when this sort of tripe is published? What should we do – cop it on the chin? Unfortunately, as a soccer supporter you must suffer the consequences created by the actions of your fellow crazed soccer-supporting bretheren – like this bloke…and Foz.
Axel V said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:27pm | Report comment
JF…
In a nation that is 80% black, 95.66% that you claim of their team being black, pretty close to a fair respresenation of the ratio don’t you think? Football is a game for all people, not just the higher class white clubs demonstrated in tennis, golf, cricket, swimming and rugby. To play football you don’t need your own private field of grass, pool, fairway or court. All you need is a ball!
Lastly, what exactly is ‘black’, would you classify Steven Pienaar as being black?
kovana said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:30pm | Report comment
@ axel
“higher class white clubs”
Dude.. dont get sucked into that vortex..
Remember us here in the Polynesian Triangle Love our Rugby… Its not a ELITIST sport as you always try and portray…
Stop making baseless comments like that…
Where im from. Soccer is for the rich kids..
JF said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:41pm | Report comment
Yes we get it Axel, football is simple, requires little equipment, can be played anywhere, is the most popular sport in every African nation including South Africa. I have no problem with any of this, just don’t tell me that Rugby “remains a pillar of the old apartheid regime” or that Rugby is not a popular game in South Africa – it is only follwed by whites, or that you must be rich and go to a private school to play Rugby.
Chris K said | July 10th 2010 @ 6:02pm | Report comment
Err maybe because the springbok is actually animal
Kurt said | July 10th 2010 @ 10:36pm | Report comment
OK noted – I was just basing my observation on what I saw of the Sth African team at the WC which clearly was not the entire squad.
Seiran said | July 10th 2010 @ 3:42am | Report comment
I just wasted two minutes of my life reading this rubbish. Does the author have a chip on his shoulder against rugby or white south africans?
Maybe if this article was written in 1991 it might have some basis, but in the modern South Africa rugby an inclusive sport supported and played by white and non-white South Africans.
Chris K said | July 10th 2010 @ 4:04am | Report comment
This is such a poor article on so many levels. First of all Franklin are you South African, been to South Africa recently or lived there? If not how are you in a position to comment on this. I can tell you that I have and I can tell you that your more likely to find coloured/black rugby fans at your local rugby games over whites at local football games. Not to mention the make up of the springboks compared to the bafana bafana.
Secondly your implying that rugby in south africa still supports apartheid, this is obviously a subjective view and if it does in anyway that is because of it’s historical symbolism of the apartheid regime. If your suggesting that the SARU still segregates whites and blacks you are seriously mistaken. Thirdly I don’t know who is giving you your information on Danie Craven who apparently loved the aprtheid regime according to you but he was the one that actually went out of his way to meet leaders of the ANC and helped abolish whites only springbok teams despite backlash from many of the white population for doing so.
Fourthly, the reason rugby is considered the main sporting code in South Africa is because the Springboks are a dominant team that regulalrly wins international matches against competitive opposition. Same can’t be said for Bafana Bafana. Soccer is the most popular sport in South Africa but suggestions that rugby is more popular is hardly dribble. And I’m not sure who has been telling you that rugby is the dominant sport anyway, I’ve never heard anything of the sort.
And again, I’m not sure what you have seen to suggest that rugby in south africa hasn’t tried to confront it’s past, they’ve had to confront it on several occaisions and still are, mainly against people who still can’t get over the fact that the game used to be a symbol of apartheid. It may not have confronted it in a way some people had hoped but I think the growing number of blacks and coloureds that play the game as well as the growing appeal amongat the two cultures speaks for itself.
And lastly, for an article written on such a deep subject this is a pretty piss poor effort. You obviously don’t know what your talking about and just felt like bagging rugby union and if you knew anything really on the subject you would have written more than four short measley paragraphs on what is a pretty serious subject matter. And again how can you believe that just because the world cup is in town it somehow is proof that football is the only truly dominant sport in south Africa? If the world cup was in Australia most of the population would take part in the festivities surrounding the event but would that seriously mean that football is the most popular sport in Australia?
M1tch said | July 10th 2010 @ 6:25am | Report comment
Soccer might be popular with most of the population, but it wont stop the crime in south africa.
chris said | July 10th 2010 @ 6:58am | Report comment
I remember reading an article about in 20 years time Australian and New Zealand Rugby League and Union will be made up of over 50% players from a Polyonisan background and will be on par of how many black/mixed race players there are in the NFL.
I think 20-40 years time pro Rugby in South Africa will be at least 50% black.
Altona Rebel said | July 10th 2010 @ 7:35am | Report comment
Mr black, Did you know more people in New Zealand play Soccer than Rugby? But Rugby is by far the Most Popular sport. So just because a sport is played by the Masses Does not make it the most popular. Also have you Attended a Soccer Match or Rugby Match in SA? If you had you would realize at a Rugby match the crowd is a mix of whites, Blacks, Coloured also Asians and Indians, A Soccer Match Is almost Completely Black except for a few Foreigners who sit away form the Black supports
Midfielder said | July 10th 2010 @ 9:19am | Report comment
Franklin
So sad you wrote this…. while it may be obvious football is the more popular game with the black population in SA … you fail in any sense to understand the degree that SA rugby has gone to be part of the new SA … meaning part of black as well as white SA …
If you can help the process … please do so…
AR … bad reaction… there are many reasons football sits where it does in SA .. stadiums. skill, money etc … that is part of the reason FIFA took the game there… would also be helpful to assist the process..
titus said | July 10th 2010 @ 9:51am | Report comment
Rugby has never pretended to be the ‘main sporting code’ in SA in terms of popularity in numbers. Where do you get your information from? The fairy that sits on that chip on your shoulder?
So what I get from this article is:
black population = supressed people = soccer = good
white afrikaan poplulation = oppressors = rugby = bad
How you can sum up the whole sporting landscape of football and rugby in 4 paragraphs, says a lot in so little.
Working Class Rugger said | July 10th 2010 @ 10:01am | Report comment
Franklin
The SARU have been working hard on including Blacks in Rugby since the fall of apartheid. It hasn’t always gone smoothly but the intention is certainly there. Now, speaking to a South African recently ( he’s a Xhosa by the way and a Rugby fan) he updated me significantly on the state of SA Rugby. While the game is still king amongst the Whites it now has a very strong Coloured following and a substantial and no importantly growing Black base. In fact the SARU were pushing for an exclusively Black Eastern Cape team known as the Southern Kings to enter Super Rugby ( watch out for 2013, that’s there next opportunity). The only reason they didn’t was the new conference system being introduced next season.
This article is pure rubbish. I’m not a fan of either League or AFL and don’t actually enjoy Soccer as much as I once did but will that mean I’m going to write up such a poor and slanderous piece against one of the above. Next time you have the urge to vent try doing in a pre-existing thread so that we don’t have to waste time reading something that we could have simply bypassed.
Oh, and I believe you may be a bitter Black South African ex-pat who has likely since left the Republic and believes that they are now entitled to vent frustrations against a regime that has long since pasted.
JF said | July 10th 2010 @ 11:32am | Report comment
Is that you Fozzy? Typical absolutist dribble from the soccer crowd.
Make sure you watch the Springbok v All Black test that will be played at Soccer City in a couple of weeks, take a good look at the make up of the crowd.
Shahsan said | July 10th 2010 @ 11:48am | Report comment
Go back to school, Franklin. Get an education.
JF said | July 10th 2010 @ 11:58am | Report comment
How about responding to the football supporters who also thought your article was garbage?
Franklin Black said | July 10th 2010 @ 12:03pm | Report comment
Which one was that? lol
I am a fan of just about all sports. No one says I have to ignore union’s apalling history in South Africa like most others here. Free country.
We are starting to see some of the problems associated with the enforced poverty of apartheid coming to an end. Union had to be dragged kicking and screaming to that point.
Tom of Brisbane said | July 10th 2010 @ 12:00pm | Report comment
Yawn, another “my football is better than your football” article. You are allowed to like more than one code you know, it’s not against the law.
Yes, soccer is the most popular game on the planet. We know, OK. You don’t have to keep telling us.
What do you think is going to happen? Messrs Gallop, O’Neill and Demetriou have a conference call going something like “Apparently soccer has won fellas, better call off our comps straight away”
JF said | July 10th 2010 @ 12:06pm | Report comment
How did this article get past the moderators? With statements like “Rugby union remains a pillar of the old apartheid regime,..” it is blatent code-war mongering, the article is of no value. No moderating on weekends?
katzilla said | July 10th 2010 @ 12:16pm | Report comment
A poorly written troll piece this one.
Didn’t even manage to get some football hardcores to back you up, your claims are that rediculous.
COME ON SPAIN!
COME ON ALL BLACKS!
Shahsan said | July 10th 2010 @ 12:31pm | Report comment
If you are saying that South Africa and rugby union in South Africa had a racist past in South Africa, I’m afraid that is something we all know and have acknowledged many times. There is absolutely no dispute there. And you’re at least 45 years late in making that point. Or have you just read it somewhere and think no one else knows about it?
Or are you saying apartheid — in the society and in rugby — still exists? (That is what you are implying in your article.) If so, then you are way off base.
So what are the lies rugby union is telling about South Africa?
Shahsan said | July 12th 2010 @ 5:44am | Report comment
To quote your good self: “Glad we all agree union tells lies about South Africa.”
Anyway, i really dont know where you are going with this. You’re like a born-again fundmanetalist.
The reality is that there is no apartheid in SA rugby — it’s all marketing. Of course more people play and follow soccer than any other sport, but the ‘Springbok’ is an important and succesful symbol, and not just for the white South Africans over the past 15 years, so naturally they remain prominent. All South Africans derive pride from follwing that team, as well as the succesful provinces. If the Bafana Bafana get their act together and wn a world cup or two they will get that kind of following too.
Soccer is also the most popular participation sport in the US and Australia, but they get much less airtime and coverage than other sports such as US football, basketball and baseball; and Aussie rules and rugby league., respectively. It is just history and, again, marketing.
kovana said | July 10th 2010 @ 12:31pm | Report comment
FB is perverted….
He is curling fan pretending to be a Soccer nut… For shame Frank.. For shame indeed.
jeznez said | July 10th 2010 @ 12:55pm | Report comment
If a Troll is someone who blogs something to start a fight – does that make this author an Ogre? What a stupid article.
Franklin Black said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:14pm | Report comment
Kovana versus the world and how it really is…
Franklin Black said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:18pm | Report comment
While you are adding more comments to the list – and thanks for that – you really need to think about seeing a professional in the medical area.
Franklin Black said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:40pm | Report comment
Despite the pathetic attempts from kovana to derail the thread, it seems some readers are interested in the history of this subject. I do endorse the earlier comment re “The Team That Never Played” – an excellent sports documentary.
Gives a little more perspective than the rantings of a clear madman like kovana.
Moderators – is he an indication of the level of madness at The Roar? Just for future reference…
Franklin Black said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:46pm | Report comment
Your nonsensical and near illiterate responses are embarrassing…
The fact the mods let them through reflects very poorly on them.
Franklins Father said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:52pm | Report comment
Please.. Your Upper class attitude is sickening…..
jmo said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:42pm | Report comment
If South African soccer crowds really are enthusiastic about the game they should at least try to make a bit more noise at matches. If yelling support for one team or the other is too much, then maybe bring some kind of improvised musical instrument, just to provide a bit of atmosphere.
Franklin Black said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:44pm | Report comment
“if”…
lol
Franklin Black said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:52pm | Report comment
As I have made clear numerous times, relative wealth has a little to do with it. lol
40 million plus people living in abject poverty of course have plenty of spare cash to spend on sporting tickets…
Nearly as perceptive as the NZRU in apologising fifty years after the event re- Maori players being excluded from tours to the very country we are speaking about.
Franklin Black said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:59pm | Report comment
Not sure where you get that from…
Same place you decided I was a Scotsman and played curling. Deep in the recesses of your fevered imagination.
Soccer is for everyone as it’s history shows.
Union’s history clearly shows it had no interest beyond the elite for the vast bulk of the 20th Century (for example only). It’s “johnny come lately” attempts to rectify the situation were forced on it by professionalism (which it also avoided for at least 100 years previously).
The irony.
Akazie said | July 10th 2010 @ 2:18pm | Report comment
RU has never apologised for what it has done to RL over the last 115 years Kovana.
titus said | July 10th 2010 @ 2:09pm | Report comment
Moderators, where are you? Please close this article down pronto. It’s a farce and not up to roar standards.
Franklin White said | July 10th 2010 @ 2:19pm | Report comment
Frank.. Please come home.
Franklin Black said | July 10th 2010 @ 2:21pm | Report comment
100 comments. Thanks to kovana. And Kovana. And Franklin White.
Unfortunately all the same person…
Akazie said | July 10th 2010 @ 2:21pm | Report comment
You reckon Kovana?
I think all sports have idiots and gentlemen involved in them.
You said earlier in this thread that you don’t like it when people generalise about RU with its toffs tag, yet you have just done the same thing in regards to soccer.
Franklin blackk said | July 10th 2010 @ 2:23pm | Report comment
And me too
Franklin Black said | July 10th 2010 @ 2:24pm | Report comment
Soccer isn’t my favourite sport. I like others far more – I suggest you refer to my profile (although they can’t be ranked).
Wonder which sport you follow though?
Can I have more than 1 guess? No…that should be enough.
lol
Franklin white said | July 10th 2010 @ 2:26pm | Report comment
Im sorry Frank.. Im the real Franklin. You are just a troll copy.
Franklin white said | July 10th 2010 @ 2:28pm | Report comment
Coog… Come off it.
Chris said | July 10th 2010 @ 2:32pm | Report comment
Continuing on the petty theme of this article (which would easily rank as the worst in Roar history)”
Isn’t it funny how both the Super 14 and Currie Cup demolish the South African soccer comp in terms of attendance and revenue? An inconvenient truth if ever there was one.
Chris K said | July 10th 2010 @ 5:53pm | Report comment
A well written article would have come up with these facts themselves. You have a huge chip on your shoulder. The Rugby fans on here don’t have any issues with soccer being the most supporteed sport in south africa but everything else you’ve written is utter crap. Read up on apartheid, actually make a trip to south africa, actually watch a rugby game in south africa IN MODERN TIMES, read up on Danie Craven, was he a supporter of apartheid? where are the facts for this? It’s common knowledge that he was the one that met with ANC members and helped end player segregation and establish SARU today.
Then after all this, then make an article, a decent one, not some lazy year 9 attempt at an essay
Forgetmenot said | July 11th 2010 @ 6:04pm | Report comment
Could you please link me to the articles/journals that you used to write your article.
Thanks in advance
Dan said | July 11th 2010 @ 11:21pm | Report comment
Your “articles”? You have one piece on this site and it is too short and too lacking in structure to be called an article.
Dan said | July 11th 2010 @ 8:13pm | Report comment
I’d say that they might take offence at the very fact that a few sentences of dribble was even published. If someone were to raise similar issues in a well thought out, detailed, structured and articulate manner, then I’m certain they would in fact respond.
The fact is that you come across as a stupid troll, and they’ve seen plenty of you before.
Dan said | July 11th 2010 @ 8:16pm | Report comment
Ok, I’ll bite.
1. Soccer
2. Soccer
3. Soccer
Now, what’s your point and why do we care?
Franklin white said | July 10th 2010 @ 2:34pm | Report comment
I franklin White am a union FAN.
I like actual Physical sports..
I like sports where Men are real MEN…
They dont go diving and crying in PAIN.. when no one touched them..
I like sports where guys Bleed and sweat. And yet still have respect for a referee. Also still have manners.
You soccer types are the real joke, Hooligans, the lot of ya.
Chris said | July 10th 2010 @ 2:41pm | Report comment
and feel free to fill me in when South African soccer develops a white player as integral to the national team as Bryan Habana, Ricky Januarie, the Beast, JP Peitersen, Gio Aplon and the like.
The Springboks are full of Black and coloured players. As is the South African cricket team (name me a white South African soccer player with the profile of Makaya Ntini, JP Duminy or Hashim Amla or Ashwell Prince).
The only national team that does not have a full cross section of South Africa is the soccer team (and for the record no-one in South Africa calls Soccer football. The final is being played at “Soccer City” after all).
Chris said | July 10th 2010 @ 3:10pm | Report comment
One bench player! What a massive step towards racial diversity that is!
Australian Football said | July 10th 2010 @ 3:56pm | Report comment
I think you’ll find that Booth captained the Bafana Bafana for some of the confederation cup games not a bench player at all for that tournament..
Chris said | July 10th 2010 @ 2:49pm | Report comment
The author of this article seems to be quite confused in that he is taking the large number of responses to indicate he has written a good article.
If I wrote an article entitled: “Soccer is played only by poofs” then I would expect a huge number of comments. Would it mean I had written a good article? Not at all. It would in fact mean I had written a rubbish article.
Learn the difference between good journalism and sensationalist journalism. A large number of comments means nothing when most of them are just pointing how how stupid your premise is.
Chris said | July 10th 2010 @ 3:08pm | Report comment
Given your sport is unquestionably the biggest in the world you seem unbelievably insecure about it! It’s almost as though you can’t stand the mere idea of other sports even existing.
In terms of media exposure (apart from this one off World Cup year), attendance and revenue Soccer runs a far second to Rugby (and indeed Cricket) in South Africa. Is that really so hard to accept?
I know it hurts you to know that your sport is not number one in every single nation, that there are small pockets of sporting diversity of this earth, that some people have interests and preferences that differ from your own – but its true. Toughen up sunshine.
Chris K said | July 10th 2010 @ 5:58pm | Report comment
funnily enough the football fans haven’t come out in force to back you up either. Maybe they are embarassrd at such a poorly written article
jiggles said | July 10th 2010 @ 3:02pm | Report comment
This article is disgusting as it is just trying to incite anger and racism. You Franklin Black are just as bad as the Apartheid regime. shame on you for suggesting that ALL Afrikaners and all white people in general involved with Springbok rugby still stuck in a system which ended around 20 years ago.
Racism is still racism despite what has happened in the past and what colour your skin is.
Chris said | July 10th 2010 @ 9:13pm | Report comment
As Jiggles said above:
“Racism is racism”. Be it White on Black or Black on White. It is all disgusting and should all be abolished.
Apelu Tielu said | July 10th 2010 @ 4:39pm | Report comment
I saw no white player in the Bfanabfana, but the Springbok and regional teams have some exciting black players.
Fussball ist unser leben said | July 11th 2010 @ 12:11pm | Report comment
Not that it matters, but defender, Matthew Booth is a white player in the 2010 squad and is one of the most popular players in the hearts of South Africa’s (predominantly black) supporter base, and they shout out “Boooooooooth” whenever he touches the ball.
Corey said | July 14th 2010 @ 11:39pm | Report comment
Are you sure they shout or is that what we interpret the vuvuzelas noise as.
Forgetmenot said | July 10th 2010 @ 5:28pm | Report comment
Franklin,
Skimming through these posts there is a clear consensus that there is something fundamentally wrong with this article.
South Africans welcomed both the Rugby and Soccer World Cups. An article like yours only serves to further highlight the division in the a nation that is desperately trying to close it.
Rugby has worked hard to open up their sport to the indigenous africans, while soccer has tried to open up to the white south africans. Both have been relatively successful.
It seems to me that you have only looked at numbers of indigenous africans versus white south africans, and have use those as a basis for a sports popularity. The politics involved in post-apartheid South Africa is quite varied and impossible to reflect in a small one sided article like your own.
Articles like these should help you understand further the situation in South Africa:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SPORT/football/07/02/south.africa.afrikaner/index.html?fbid=uBV7nzFQk1K
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704545004575352962741674240.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704123604575322913697900130.html?mod=WSJ_article_related
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703627704575298783329519978.html?mod=WSJ_article_related
http://g.sports.yahoo.com/soccer/world-cup/news/orania-south-africa-where-apartheid-lives-on–fbintl_lc-orania061510.html
http://g.sports.yahoo.com/soccer/world-cup/news/orania-south-africa-where-apartheid-lives-on–fbintl_lc-orania061510.html
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/africa/2010/07/05/what-next-cape-town
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,699384,00.html
These articles will probably also retrigger the debate on whether South Africa should have hosted the Soccer World Cup. I dont think so.
Forgetmenot said | July 12th 2010 @ 1:12am | Report comment
And you still skirt around the fundamental flaws in your article.
HK47 said | July 10th 2010 @ 5:42pm | Report comment
Just so everyone knows, I’m a scotsman who likes Curling and Rugby Union and am suing the lot of you (especially you FB) for defiling the name of the two good sports
Chris K said | July 10th 2010 @ 5:54pm | Report comment
There aren’t any facts in the article to begin with
Australian Football said | July 10th 2010 @ 6:44pm | Report comment
FB loves: AFL, League, Tennis, Football, Cricket, Netball, Golf, Motor
Franklin Black’s favourite sporting team is Earth.
If you take the time to checkout FB’s Profile he loves all the above and has no favourite team so he may very well be an AFL supporter.
rugbyfuture said | July 10th 2010 @ 8:08pm | Report comment
dear zac zavos, i seem to recall one of my articles less obvious than this being banned and taken down for “inciting code wars” howabout a little less anti bias
rugbyfuture said | July 10th 2010 @ 8:40pm | Report comment
wasnt addressed to you, already had my opinion put forward previously, something you didnt comment on, basically because you know it was correct. obviously you’re thinking right now, as you have previously in this section that all the ruggers on this forum are the same person, so theres no point in trying to be reasonable with you
rugbyfuture said | July 10th 2010 @ 9:02pm | Report comment
you havent shown me up at all, it seems your world is one of your own mind’s making.
i’ve learnt plenty over my short time on earth and no many distinct facts from your own.
given the countries founding father was responsible for the retention of the name, are you saying hes racist against black south africans?
Chris said | July 10th 2010 @ 9:20pm | Report comment
Franklin – anyone who ever uses the word “lol” as part of a debate has more or less summed up their intelligence quite neatly.
Your article is based on little more than tired stereotypes that would be more at home in the 1980s, thinly veiled racism and such irrational hatred towards Rugby that is verges on xenophobia.