Springbok captain Siya Kolisi says he does not want to be picked because of the colour of his skin and that former President Nelson Mandela would not support a quota system in South African sport.
His comments have caused a storm on Twitter and it was still trending on Tuesday.
Kolisi, the first black man to ever captain the Springboks, was asked about how Mandela would have responded to the idea of transformation targets in national sports teams.
Kolisi said he did not think Mandela would have supported it but stressed that he did not know him.
A product of Grey High School in Port Elizabeth, Kolisi said if one wants to talk about transformation, you have to start at the grassroots level.
But it was his comments that if he had not gone to Grey he wouldn't have eaten properly and grown properly and would not have had the preparation that the other boys did, that drew widespread reaction.
Siya Kolisi is Mmusi Maimane in a rugby field. He thinks people who never went to English schools can’t make on Springboks starting line-up. He will need us when Afrikaners remind him he’s black like us #Siya Kolisi.
Others came to Kolisi’s defence
#SiyaKolisi is 100% on merit & correct! Quotas in all forms are killing South Africa. Furthermore it goes against our very constitution! Quotas cannot work if applied unfairly as is the case currently. Govt must build capacity first.
Kolisi concluded in the interview that he would not want to be picked because of his skin colour because that surely wouldn't be good for the team and the guys around it.
