South African rugby plunged into crisis as Luyt refuses to quit

THE FUTURE of South African rugby was in crisis last night after the country's white rugby supremo Louis Luyt refused to resign despite a demand by more than half his executive that he go to avert an international boycott.

In an ominous split along racial lines, the four black members of the executive of the South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) resigned after the notoriously stubborn Big Louis, Sarfu president, refused to follow the majority decision.

As a National Sports Council deadline for the resignation of Luyt and his executive expired, the rugby president also refused to support a decision of his executive to apologise to President Nelson Mandela for what they called his "humiliating" appearance in court last month after a judge insisted he appear in person to defend his decision to order an inquiry into allegations of racism and graft in the game.

Luyt refused to allow a government inquiry. Although Sarfu won its court battle with the government it was widely predicted that it would lose the wider war.

Last night Muleki George, the president of the Sports Council, said that the council's threat to invoke an international boycott still stood, after Luyt refused to quit.

A boycott would jeopardises millions of pounds of promised sponsorship in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and throw international competition into disarray.

Mr Luyt started the day with in typical swaggering style, telling a breakfast meeting organised by a business publication that he would not resign and that the row between him and President Mandela's government was to do with race rather than sport.

With international isolation again looming for a sport which in the apartheid era earned a reputation for attracting racist and right-wing supporters, Luyt said little to take the racial sting out of the confrontation.

"Are we going to remain a lawless society? Because that's what we are, you know," he said to the loud applause of the audience of white, middle- aged men.

Luyt said that the bitter row with government was not about Sarfu but about Louis Luyt. "This was about someone being in the way, and, let me tell you, I intend to be in the way for a long time to come," he said. He added that he would bow before no man - presumably not even President Mandela - only to God.

But last night, at the end of the Sarfu executive meeting, the usually bullish Luyt looked uncharacteristically shellshocked. It is unlikely that he expected that eight of the 14 affiliated provincial rugby unions would turn against him.

The fear now is that the row over rugby's apparent failure to reach out to the black majority will spill over into an even more overtly racial conflict.

Mr George has warned that protesters will block any tours planned in South Africa by Ireland, England and Wales which begin later this month; though it is doubtful that they would attempt to ignore a boycott urged by President Mandela.

For big sponsors like Rupert Murdoch, who are funding the multi-million pound Tri-Nations competition between South Africa, New Zealand and Australia a fortune is at risk.

Silas Nkanunu, Sarfu senior vice president and one of the four executive members to resign, said last night that the prospect for rugby was now "gloom" and that the blame rested squarely with Mr Luyt.