Kobe (Japan) (AFP)

The coach of the Springbok Rassie Erasmus denied on Sunday any racism in the team of South Africa, following a controversy around a video broadcast after the success against Italy (49-3).

"Some people are going to see something wrong, I can assure you that as a coach, I would never allow anything like that to happen, and there is nothing like that in this team. 'is a very close group,' said the Springbok boss, who faces Canada on Tuesday.

A video, viralized on social networks, shows a group of players (François Steyn, RG Snyman, Francois Louw, Vincent Koch, Franco Mostert and Steven Kitshoff), all white, to gather to celebrate the victory of the Boks on Italy (49-3), Friday. With a gesture, Steyn seems to dismiss Makazole Mapimpi, one of the black players of the team South Africa, who goes away, head down.

"Everyone knows that in a tour or a World Cup, in a group of 31, there are the fifteen holders and replacements.This time, these substitutes call themselves the 'bomb squad' (the team "Because they either go in to fix everything, or everything is fine and it's a false alarm," said the coach.

"It was a joke all week, especially around Lood de Jager (substitute in the first two meetings, Ed)." After the match, he came but Steyn told him he was no longer part of the 'bomb squad 'since he was the owner Mapimpi, who was coming, saw that it was them so he turned around, "he added.

Mapimpi himself defused the case, on Twitter, explaining that he had actually left by seeing that the players of this small group were those of the 'bomb squad'.

The start of the Boks World Cup is disrupted by a complaint filed in South Africa for racist insults and aggression targeting the second Eben Etzebeth line, accused of insulting a homeless person and pointing a firearm at him. end of August in a private incident.

The affair has caused a stir in South Africa, where racism is still a sensitive topic a quarter of a century after the fall of the apartheid regime.

Eben Etzebeth, who was part of the winning team of Italy, denied the facts.

© 2019 AFP