Sporting boycott of South Africa during the apartheid era

Based on Wikipedia: Sporting boycott of South Africa during the apartheid era

In 1976, a swimmer named Bernard Leach did something unusual at an international competition for disabled athletes. He withdrew from the games and began picketing outside with signs protesting apartheid. For this, the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation gave him a lifetime ban. Meanwhile, a South African table tennis player named Maggy Jones had already received her own lifetime ban—for handing out anti-apartheid leaflets at the 1979 games.

Think about that for a moment. Distributing pamphlets earned a permanent expulsion. Competing for a regime built on racial segregation did not.

This paradox sits at the heart of one of the twentieth century's most complex sporting sagas: the decades-long effort to isolate South Africa from international competition. It was messy, inconsistent, and often hypocritical. Athletes who defied boycotts became pariahs in some countries while collecting fat paychecks in others. Governing bodies expelled South Africa from one competition while welcoming its athletes to another. And throughout it all, the fundamental question remained contested: Were they boycotting segregated sport, or were they using sport as a weapon against apartheid itself?

The Architecture of Exclusion

South Africa's National Party introduced apartheid in 1948, but sport-specific restrictions came later, in the late 1950s. The new rules prohibited interracial competition within South Africa and restricted international travel by nonwhite athletes. This mattered because sport had been racially divided in South Africa long before apartheid became official policy. Cricket, for instance, had excluded nonwhite players from provincial and national teams since the 1890s, when a talented "Coloured" cricketer named Krom Hendricks found himself shut out despite his abilities.

What changed in the late 1950s was the codification of these practices into law, which made them impossible to ignore on the international stage.

The response came gradually, driven by an unlikely coalition. Newly independent postcolonial nations in Africa and Asia pushed for action within international sporting federations. These countries brought fresh perspectives and, crucially, fresh votes. When the International Olympic Committee withdrew its invitation to South Africa for the 1964 Summer Olympics, it was because interior minister Jan de Klerk insisted the team would not be racially integrated. De Klerk, incidentally, was the father of F.W. de Klerk, who would later help dismantle apartheid as president.

Four years later, the IOC nearly readmitted South Africa after receiving assurances that its 1968 Olympic team would be multiracial. But African nations and others threatened to boycott the Mexico City games entirely if South Africa participated. The IOC backed down.

By 1970, South Africa was formally expelled from the Olympic movement. But expulsion from the Olympics didn't mean expulsion from everything.

The Register of Shame

In 1980, the United Nations took a novel approach to enforcement. Its Centre against Apartheid began compiling what it called the "Register of Sports Contacts with South Africa"—essentially a public list of athletes and officials who had competed in the country. The information came mainly from South African newspapers, which dutifully reported on visiting sports stars.

Being listed carried no direct punishment. There was no fine, no ban, no legal consequence. The register was purely moral pressure, a form of public shaming. Athletes could have their names removed by providing a written promise never to return to apartheid South Africa for competition.

It worked remarkably well. By 1991, the consolidated list ran to fifty-six pages. Some sports bodies used the register as grounds for their own disciplinary actions. The very existence of the list made athletes think twice before accepting lucrative offers to compete in South Africa—or at least made them consider the reputational cost.

A Sport-by-Sport Patchwork

Here's where things get complicated. The degree of boycott varied wildly depending on which sport you followed. Each international federation had its own political composition, its own financial interests, its own tolerance for controversy.

Track and field provides a useful example of gradual escalation. A motion to suspend South Africa from the International Amateur Athletic Federation failed in 1966. By 1970, it passed. The suspension was renewed annually until South Africa was formally expelled in 1976. When a young runner named Zola Budd set what appeared to be a world record in the women's 5,000 meters in January 1984, running barefoot through a field in South Africa, the time wasn't ratified—because she had achieved it outside the auspices of the federation that had expelled her country.

Boxing split down the middle in revealing ways. The amateur boxing association was expelled from its international federation in 1968. But professional boxing operated through multiple competing sanctioning bodies, and they had very different attitudes.

The World Boxing Council expelled South Africa's professional boxing board in 1975 and remained vocally opposed to apartheid, refusing even to include South African boxers in its rankings. The rival World Boxing Association took a different path. South Africa's boxing board affiliated with the WBA in 1974 and was soon well represented on its executive committee. The 1978 WBA conference was held in South Africa. Many WBA title fights took place there throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Some of these fights were held in Bophuthatswana, one of the nominally independent "homelands" that the apartheid government created—territories that no other country recognized as legitimate nations. It was a convenient fiction that allowed promoters to claim they weren't technically hosting events in South Africa.

When American heavyweight John Tate fought South African Gerrie Coetzee at Loftus Versfeld Stadium in 1979, the audience was desegregated for the first time—a minor crack in the edifice made possible by the international spotlight of a championship fight. The promoter was Bob Arum, who was later criticized by rival promoter Don King for doing business in South Africa. King's moral high ground lasted until 1984, when he did the same thing himself.

The Rebel Tours

Cricket became the most dramatic battleground, in part because the sport's traditional powers—England and Australia—had deep historical ties to South Africa and deep financial interests in maintaining them.

The crisis erupted in 1968 with the "D'Oliveira affair." Basil D'Oliveira was a "Cape Coloured" South African who had emigrated to England and established himself as a talented cricketer. When he was selected for England's touring team to South Africa, the South African government made clear he would not be welcome. England's cricket authorities initially dropped D'Oliveira from the squad, then reinstated him after public outcry. South Africa canceled the tour.

The International Cricket Conference imposed a moratorium on official tours in 1970. But unofficial cricket continued. "Private" tours in the 1970s gave way to "rebel" tours in the 1980s—organized by promoters offering substantial money to players willing to defy their national cricket boards.

The punishments varied enormously depending on where the rebels came from. Players from the West Indies and Sri Lanka faced severe sanctions. English and Australian rebels got off relatively lightly. During the 1980s, up to eighty English cricketers spent their off-season playing in South Africa's domestic competitions.

By 1989, the Cricket Conference had standardized the punishment: playing in South Africa would carry a minimum four-year ban from international selection, with an amnesty for past offenses. This was both a crackdown and a tacit admission that previous enforcement had been inconsistent.

The Sports That Didn't Boycott

Golf never really tried. South African golfers continued playing on the PGA Tour, the European Tour, and in Grand Slam events throughout the apartheid era. Foreign golfers competed freely in South African Tour events. The Million Dollar Challenge at Sun City—another event technically held in a "homeland"—regularly attracted top players from around the world. When the Official World Golf Ranking was established in 1986, it included South African Tour events in its calculations from day one.

Motor racing followed a similar pattern. South African Jody Scheckter won the Formula One World Championship in 1979. South African motorcyclists Kork Ballington and Jon Ekerold won world championships in 1978, 1979, and 1980. The South African Grand Prix continued until 1985, when several constructors finally withdrew—but even then, drivers who showed up said they were competing reluctantly, bound by contractual obligations to their teams.

The French constructors Renault and Ligier pulled out under pressure from the French government. American driver Alan Jones later admitted he had faked illness to withdraw his car, because its sponsor, Beatrice Foods, was facing pressure from African American employees. It was easier to claim sickness than to take a public stand.

The Strange Case of Paralympic Sport

The Paralympic movement's relationship with South Africa reveals how complicated these decisions became in practice.

South Africa joined the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation in 1962. Ludwig Guttmann, the German-born neurologist who had essentially invented Paralympic sport, supported South African participation until his death in 1980. From 1965 onward, South Africa tried to thread a needle by sending alternating white and nonwhite teams in even- and odd-numbered years.

This arrangement unraveled before the 1976 Summer Paralympics in Toronto, when organizers refused to accept an all-white team. South Africa responded by fielding its first racially integrated parasports team—five years before the country's able-bodied teams would face similar pressure.

But integration didn't satisfy everyone. South Africa's presence in Toronto caused teams from Jamaica, India, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia, Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya to withdraw. The Canadian federal government pulled its promised funding. Paradoxically, the controversy increased public awareness of the Paralympics, boosting attendance at the games.

The 1980 and 1984 Paralympics simply didn't invite South Africa, bowing to government pressure. But South Africa continued competing in non-Paralympic events at Stoke Mandeville through 1983. That's where Bernard Leach made his protest, and where Maggy Jones handed out her leaflets and received her lifetime ban. The federation finally voted to stop inviting South Africa in 1985.

Surfing and Honorary Whiteness

Perhaps no sport better illustrated the moral contortions of the era than surfing. Surf culture traditionally prided itself on being apolitical—a convenient stance when your international events were held on South African beaches throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

When Native Hawaiian surfers competed in South Africa, organizers classified them as "honorary whites"—a bureaucratic category the apartheid system had developed to accommodate people who didn't fit neatly into its racial hierarchy but whom the government wanted to treat more favorably. Japanese businessmen, for instance, were often granted honorary white status. So were Hawaiian surfers who could draw crowds and television ratings.

The 1978 International Surfing Association World Championship and the 1982 World Surf League, both held in South Africa, were boycotted by Australia as a nation—though individual Australians competed anyway in the latter event. Tom Carroll, having competed in South African events since 1981, became the first professional surfer to boycott them in 1985.

Two South African surfers found a creative solution. Shaun Tomson won the 1977 world professional championship as a South African, then later acquired American nationality and continued competing under that flag. Wendy Botha won the 1987 ISA Women's World Championship as a South African, then did the same thing with Australian citizenship.

The Gay Games Exception

The Gay Games, founded by San Francisco Arts and Athletics in 1982, faced an unusual version of the dilemma. South Africans participated in the first edition. When calls arose to ban them from the 1986 games, the organizers refused—arguing that exclusion would contradict their message of inclusivity. The few white South Africans who had been considering entry chose to withdraw on their own.

But when the 1990 Gay Games were planned for Vancouver, the organizers there pledged to enforce the Gleneagles Agreement and exclude South Africa. This disagreement contributed to the founding of the Gay Games Federation in 1989, which took over responsibility for the games and endorsed Vancouver's position.

The Gleneagles Agreement, worth explaining, was a 1977 Commonwealth declaration discouraging sporting contact with South Africa. It had no enforcement mechanism—it was a statement of principle, not a binding treaty. But it gave cover to organizations that wanted to exclude South Africa, and it embarrassed governments that failed to enforce it.

The British government under Margaret Thatcher was notably reluctant to enforce Gleneagles domestically. This led Nigeria to organize a boycott of the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, which eventually involved thirty-two of fifty-nine eligible teams. It was a striking demonstration of how sporting boycotts could become entangled with broader geopolitical disputes—and how much leverage the African nations had gained.

Rugby's Special Status

Rugby occupied a unique position. South Africa remained a member of the International Rugby Board throughout the entire apartheid era. It was never expelled, never formally suspended. Instead, the sport became a battleground for year-by-year fights over individual tours.

New Zealand was the crucial case. The two countries shared an intense rugby rivalry and a long history of tours. In 1969, activists founded Halt All Racist Tours specifically to oppose continued rugby contact with South Africa. The 1981 All Blacks tour of South Africa was the last foreign tour apartheid South Africa would host—but getting to that point required years of protests, cancelled tours, and diplomatic pressure.

Even after the Gleneagles Agreement, controversial tours continued. The British Lions toured in 1980. France toured the same year. Ireland toured in 1981. England toured in 1984. A planned Lions tour was cancelled in 1986, but South African players still participated in centenary celebration matches in Cardiff and London that year.

South Africa was excluded from the first two Rugby World Cups, in 1987 and 1991. When they were finally readmitted for the 1995 tournament, held in South Africa, Nelson Mandela famously wore a Springbok jersey to present the trophy—transforming a symbol of white South African nationalism into a gesture of reconciliation.

Chess, Tennis, and the Cold War Overlay

Some boycott efforts became tangled with Cold War politics in unexpected ways. At the 1964 Wimbledon Championships, the Soviet government ordered Alex Metreveli to withdraw from his third-round singles match against South African Abe Segal. The Hungarian government ordered István Gulyás to withdraw as Segal's doubles partner. These weren't protests by the athletes themselves—they were state orders, using apartheid as grounds for what might otherwise have looked like communist bloc solidarity.

The International Lawn Tennis Federation responded by passing two resolutions: one prohibiting racial discrimination at international tournaments, and another prohibiting "unauthorized withdrawal" except for health or bereavement. The federation was trying to have it both ways—condemning apartheid while preventing boycotts from disrupting its tournaments.

Chess saw similar tensions. At the 1970 Chess Olympiad, players and teams protested South Africa's inclusion, with some withdrawing entirely. The Albanian team forfeited its match against South Africa rather than play. South Africa was expelled from the World Chess Federation in 1974, mid-tournament, and wouldn't return to international competition until 1992.

Arthur Ashe and the Question of Engagement

Not everyone agreed that isolation was the right strategy. Arthur Ashe, the African American tennis champion and civil rights activist, took a more nuanced position. He campaigned successfully to have South Africa ejected from the 1970 Davis Cup. But he also traveled to South Africa, played in tournaments there, and reported back on conditions.

In 1973, Ashe told tennis officials that South Africa's tennis organization was "sufficiently integrated"—and South Africa was reinstated to the Davis Cup, though placed in the Americas Zone rather than the Europe Zone where other African nations competed. This was both a vindication of engagement and an acknowledgment that integration remained incomplete.

The 1974 Davis Cup final presented the starkest possible test of principle versus practicality. India refused to travel to South Africa for the final and forfeited. South Africa was awarded the Davis Cup without playing the deciding match. India's stand was absolute—but it also meant South Africa got to claim a trophy.

How It Ended

The sporting boycott didn't end apartheid. Economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, internal resistance, and the collapse of the Cold War all played larger roles. But sport provided a visible, emotionally resonant arena where the conflict played out in ways ordinary people could understand.

The International Olympic Committee adopted a declaration calling for "total isolation of apartheid sport" on June 21, 1988. The UN General Assembly had adopted the International Convention against Apartheid in Sports back in December 1985. These were late additions to a framework that had been building for decades.

When apartheid finally ended in the early 1990s, South Africa rejoined international sport with remarkable speed. The country was readmitted to the Olympics in time for Barcelona in 1992. It rejoined the cricket world in time to compete in that year's World Cup. Track and field, tennis, rugby—one by one, the doors reopened.

The whole episode demonstrated both the power and the limits of sporting boycotts. They couldn't topple a determined government on their own. But they could impose real costs, generate sustained attention, and make it impossible to pretend that business as usual was acceptable. They forced athletes, officials, and spectators to take sides—or at least to acknowledge that sides existed.

And they left behind fifty-six pages of names: people who had decided the competition was worth the moral compromise, preserved forever in a United Nations register of shame.