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Rugby star’s position under government attack
Barely 24 hours before he had to take to the field on Friday last week to play for South Africa in an international rugby test match against France, Zimbabwean-born prop Tendai Mtawarira was the subject of a bitter and exceptionally sharply worded attack by the Sports ministry on “sport administrators”, and calling into doubt his right to play for South Africa. This incident has highlighted a number of highly ironical situations, not only with regard to migrating sport stars but also the handling of immigration and work permits in general.
It is unclear why the Sports ministry chose to zoom in on the Mtawarira case so shortly before a test match in the most public of ways possible, after it was approached for “assistance”. The wording of a statement issued the night before the test match had an surprisingly hostile tone, referring to what it calls “a situation where sport administrators clearly do not know South African laws or simply do not respect our laws.”
The greatest irony of all is that the particular player had already represented South Africa in 19 test matches by the time the department chose to attack his position in the team, stating that “only citizens of a country may represent that country.”
Not only has Mtawarira been playing international rugby for South Africa and the Sharks in terms of the rules of the International Rugby Board, but ironically, the South African team has been assisted in its preparation for the test against France by another South African who has played numerous games as a prop for the French.
Johan Prinsloo, chief executive officer of the South African Rugby Union (SARU), admitted in a statement that a problem occurred as a result of an administrative oversight, due to a South African regulation that came into effect in 2007 – four years after Mtawarira arrived in South Africa. SARU was under the impression that the documentation obtained by the Sharks franchise four years earlier, was sufficient.
The attack on SARU and the player – nicknamed "The Beast", and who has built up a huge South African fan base – came in the same week that Minister of Home Affairs Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma admitted at a media briefing that her department had no idea how many illegal immigrants were living in the country.
The police, in its latest available annual report, estimates that there could be as many as six million “undocumented” immigrants in the country, with the minimum number pegged at three million.
