“Don’t Support Apartheid Sport”: Appeal By Chief A. J. Luthuli and Dr G. M. Naicker, June 1962

"don't Support Apartheid Sport":  appeal By Chief A. J. Luthuli And Dr G. M. Naicker, June 1962⁷⁷

FIFA - the world soccer body has suspended the all-White South African Football Association from international football for the second year in succession Reason: SOUTH AFRICA’S COLOUR POLICY.

The International Olympics Association will give serious conside­ration to the continued participation of White South African athletes in future Olympics. Reason: SOUTH AFRICA’S COLOUR POLICY!

In every field of sport South Africa’s colour policy is under fire … Sportsmen throughout the world are taking action against South African participation because of the colour bar practised by the all-White sporting representatives of this country. Sportsmen of the world condemn apartheid in sport!

In South Africa, however, whilst there has been some measure of opposition to the colour bar in sport, many thousands of people continue to patronise all-White sporting events Recently in Durban, nearly 20,000 non-Whites - mainly Indians, paying almost R4,000 attended an all-White soccer match at Kingsmead. They sat in segregated enclosures.

Similarly in other centres and in all fields of sport we find thousands of non-Whites making huge contri­butions to witness all-White events sponsored by organisations which refuse to end apartheid in their ranks.

What does this mean in effect? It means those amongst us who at­tend such racially exclusive events are in fact - morally and financially - supporting the perpetuation of apartheid.

Whilst we appreciate that the vast majority of those who attend such apartheid sporting events are in no way supporters of apartheid and all its attendant evils, we would like them to take into account the abhorrence with which apartheid is held internationally and by the Non-White peoples of South Africa.

Is it not time for South African sportsmen - players, athletes, admi­nistrators and spectators, both Black and White, to sacrifice this one pleasure and in so doing support their own non-racial organisations in the fight against apartheid?

In the apartheid atmosphere in which we live in this country this seems to us an urgent and important matter. The question is: do you support racialism in sport? Each person must ask himself this question, honestly and sincerely - without any rationalisation - and then decide what steps he is going to take in the future.