'They don't want a black coach'

2008-09-07 14:41

Johannesburg - Springbok coach Peter de Villiers has threatened to "give (the job) back to the whites" amid allegations that he had been videotaped engaging in a sex act in public, the Sunday Times reported.

"I knew there were still people who do not want a black coach; I just never knew the extent people would go to discredit me," an enraged De Villiers said as he categorically denied any sexual impropriety.

De Villiers spoke to the Sunday Times after rumours that he had been captured on CCTV footage in a car with an unknown woman in a parking lot in the Eastern Cape in April this year.

Chris Hewitt, the Springbok's media officer, is facing disciplinary proceedings over the sex tape claims.

No evidence of tape

De Villiers confirmed that Hewitt had alleged on August 15 "before the New Zealand test" in Cape Town that a potentially compromising tape existed.

De Villiers said the "nonsense" allegation had since grown into a "smear" and that the tape was being used to blackmail him into including a certain player.

But he rubbished the blackmail conspiracy, claiming that unnamed people opposed to transformation were behind the slurs, and that the storm had made him seriously consider resigning.

De Villiers said the allegations related to a two-day visit to King William's Town in April, when he stayed at a guest house belonging to the brother of a former rugby colleague.

On the second night, De Villiers said, "We stayed at this guest house; we sat and had a braai with (the owner) and his wife, late at night; and after that we all went to bed."

De Villiers said he had been told that ANC MP Cedric Frolick - a member of the portfolio committee on sport, who has been critical of his progress with race transformation - had a copy of the alleged tape.

However, Frolick denied any knowledge of a tape, the Sunday Times said.

A Saru statement said: "Saru can confirm that a company employee did approach Mr De Villiers on August 15 in Cape Town. The employee made certain extraordinary claims which Saru has since looked into but has been unable to find any basis to support in fact."

- SAPA