Johannesburg (AFP)

For years, the issue of racial quotas in South African rugby, intended to promote the black majority victim of apartheid politics, regularly feeds the debate. It does not arise however in football.

When Bafana Bafana played this week against Ivory Coast at the African Cup of Nations in Egypt, they lined up 10 Black players and one White.

A choice of coach Stuart Baxter, a white of English origin, purely dictated by sports criteria but reflects the demographic composition of the country where 92% of the population is black or mixed.

In the Springboks, it's a different story. Rugby is struggling to get rid of its white sports image.

To change the game, quotas have been imposed. Half of the players selected for the World Cup in Japan this year must be in color, according to the agreement reached between the South African Rugby Federation and the government.

"The insistence on setting quotas in rugby, but not in football, is explained by the ban on blacks wearing the national colors" in rugby during the racist apartheid regime, which fell in 1994, explains South African sports journalist Matshelane Mamabolo.

"Football in South Africa does not have the same racial problems (...) because it has long been open to all races," he adds to AFP.

"Unlike rugby, a sport that was the pride of the apartheid government and was generally practiced by the Afrikaners (descendants of Dutch settlers), football has always been inclusive," he said.

At the peak of apartheid, there were four instances of national football: one for the four races set up by the regime (Blacks, Whites, "Colored" and Indians). But as early as the 1970s, footballers challenged racial laws and started playing together in the first division.

South African football officials were less progressive, refusing to field mixed teams for international competitions.

- At the bench of nations -

The sanctions did not take long. The International Football Federation (FIFA) banned, then reinstated, before excluding South Africa again in 1976 following the Soweto students' uprising, which was suppressed in blood.

The end of the apartheid regime in sight, the South African football authorities have felt the wind turn.

They created a multiracial entity, the South African Football Association, in 1991, a year after the liberation of Nelson Mandela, hero of the struggle against apartheid. And the national team has returned to the concert of nations round ball.

Ditto for rugby.

But in 1992, South Africa introduced a team of 100% white Springboks.

Three years later for the World Cup at home, Nelson Mandela, the first black president of South Africa, caused a sensation by endorsing the jersey of Springboks, symbol of reconciliation. But only one Black, winger Chester Williams, was on the world champion team.

Since then, the transformation is still very slow. At the 2007 World Cup, only two black players were part of the Springboks.

In 2018, their coach Rassie Erasmus summoned seven blacks for a test-match against Wales but they were only three to play against New Zealand.

In early 2018, however, he made a bold decision by naming for the first time a black, Siya Kolisi, captain of the national XV. Event.

The subject of quotas remains ultra-sensitive. The ten football and rugby players contacted by AFP refused to speak. "This is a delicate subject and I do not want to put myself at odds with my club," said one of them.

Former South African defender Matthew Booth dares. He is now retired. "Multiracial football was a great experience," he says, "it opened my mind to playing with compatriots of other races."

? 2019 AFP