South Africa under apartheid was subjected to a variety of international boycotts, including on sporting contacts. There was some debate about whether the aim of the boycott was to oppose segregation in sport or apartheid in general, with the latter view prevailing in later decades.[1][2] While the National Party introduced apartheid in 1948, it added sport-specific restrictions from the late 1950s, on interracial sport within South Africa and international travel by nonwhite athletes. The international federations (IFs) governing various sports began to sanction South Africa, both in response to the new restrictions and in reflection of the broader anti-racism of national federations in newly independent postcolonial states. By the early 1970s, South African national teams were excluded from most Olympic sports, although South Africans competed in individual events in some, mainly professional, sports through the 1980s. Although from the mid-1970s the National Party relaxed the application of segregation provisions in relation to sport, this failed to alleviate the boycott, which continued until the end of apartheid.[3]
United Nations
In 1980, the United Nations' Centre against Apartheid began compiling a "Register of Sports Contacts with South Africa".[4] This was a list of sportspeople and officials who had participated in events within South Africa.[4] It was compiled mainly from reports in South African newspapers.[4] Being listed did not itself result in any punishment, but was regarded as a moral pressure on athletes.[4] Some sports bodies would discipline athletes based on the register.[4] Athletes could have their names deleted from the register by giving a written undertaking not to return to apartheid South Africa to compete.[4] The register is regarded as having been an effective instrument.[2][5][6] A consolidated list running to 56 pages was published in 1991.[7]
The UN General Assembly adopted the International Convention against Apartheid in Sports on 10 December 1985.[8]
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) withdrew its invitation to South Africa to the 1964 Summer Olympics when interior minister Jan de Klerk insisted the team would not be racially integrated.[9] In 1968, the IOC was prepared to readmit South Africa after assurances that its team would be multi-racial; but a threatened boycott by African nations and others forestalled this.[10] The South African Games of 1969 and 1973 were intended to allow Olympic-level competition for South Africans against foreign athletes. South Africa was formally expelled from the IOC in 1970.[11]
The organisers of the 1980 and 1984 Paralympics acceded to their governments' demands not to invite South Africa, but through to 1983 it continued to compete in the non-Paralympic ISMGs at Stoke Mandeville.[19] The ISMGF gave a lifetime ban to 1976 table tennis medallist Maggy Jones for distributing anti-apartheid leaflets at the 1979 ISMG.[19][20] Swimmer Bernard Leach withdrew from the 1981 ISMG and founded Disabled People Against Apartheid, which picketed ISMGs until 1983.[19][20] In 1985 the ISMGF voted to discontinue invitations to South Africa.[15][21]
The Gay Games were instigated by San Francisco Arts and Athletics (SFAA), and South Africans participated in the first (1982) edition. Calls to ban them from the 1986 games were rejected by SFAA as inconsistent with its message of inclusivity, but the few (white) South Africans considering entry decided to withdraw. The SFAA objected when the organisers of the 1990 games in Vancouver pledged to enforce the Gleneagles Agreement and exclude South Africa; this contributed to the foundation of the Gay Games Federation in 1989, which took over the SFAA's responsibility and endorsed the Vancouver position.[27]
By sport
The extent of boycotting varied between different sports, in the degree of contact permitted and the severity of punishment of "rebels" who defied the sanctions. This reflected the different political and social composition of each sport's IF.
Athletics
In track and field athletics, a motion to suspend South Africa from the IAAF was defeated in 1966,[28] but had been passed by 1970.[29]
The suspension was renewed year‐to‐year until South Africa was formally expelled in 1976.[30]
After the end of the apartheid system, South Africa officially rejoined IAAF in 1992.[31]Zola Budd's time for the women's 5,000m in January 1984 was not ratified as a world record because it was outside the auspices of the IAAF.[32]
The professional boxing South African Boxing Board of Control (SABBC) was expelled from the World Boxing Council (WBC) in 1975. The WBC remained vocal in opposition to apartheid,[34] and refused to include South African boxers in its rankings.[35]
The SABBC had affiliated to the rival World Boxing Association (WBA) in 1974.[36] It was soon well represented on the WBA executive,[37] and the 1978 conference was held there.[33] Many WBA title fights were held there, some in Boputhatswana, a putatively independent bantustan. When John Tate beat Gerry Coetzee at Loftus Versfeld in 1979, the stadium had a desegregated audience for the first time.[38] Although Don King criticised Tate's promoter Bob Arum for doing business in South Africa, King did so himself in 1984.[39] In 1986 the WBA voted to suspend the SABBC until the end of apartheid.[40] South African boxers remained eligible for WBA rankings and fights outside the country.[40] The Nevada State Athletic Commission withdrew from the WBA for a time in 1987, citing its lax apartheid policy as one reason.[41]
In the 1970 Chess Olympiad, a number of players and teams protested against South Africa's inclusion, some withdrawing themselves, and the Albanian team forfeited its match against the South African team. South Africa was expelled from FIDE while participating in the 1974 Chess Olympiad, finally returning to international competition in the 1992 Chess Olympiad.
In the World Cup, the Greek government banned South Africa from the 1979 competition in Athens. South Africa competed in the 1980 edition in Bogotá. The prospect of their appearing in the 1981 edition, due to be staged at Waterville in Ireland, caused it to be cancelled. South Africa did not reappear until the post-apartheid era in 1992.[47]
Several constructors withdrew from the 1985 edition of the South African Formula One Grand Prix, the last held before the end of apartheid. French constructors Renault and Ligier acceded to pressure to boycott from the Mitterrand–Fabius administration.[49]Alan Jones later admitted that he had feigned illness to withdraw his Haas Lola from the race, because its sponsor, Beatrice Foods, was under pressure from African American employees.[50] Some drivers said they were competing reluctantly and only out of contractual obligation to their constructor.
South Africa remained a member of the International Rugby Board (IRB) throughout the apartheid era. Halt All Racist Tours was established in New Zealand in 1969 to oppose continued tours to and from South Africa. Apartheid South Africa's last foreign tour was to New Zealand in 1981. This tour was highly controversial due to the difference of opinions. Though contacts were restricted after the Gleneagles Agreement in 1977, there were controversial tours in 1980 by the British Lions and by France, in 1981 by Ireland, and in 1984 by England. In 1986, though a Lions tour was cancelled, South Africans played in all-star matches in Cardiff and in London marking the IRB centenary.[51] South Africa was excluded from the first two Rugby World Cups, in 1987 and 1991.
Football
South Africa was suspended from FIFA in 1961, with Stanley Rous, FIFA's President, flying to South Africa in 1963 to negotiate its reinstatement with the South African Government. The South African FA proposed entering an all-white team in the 1966 World Cup and an all-black team in the 1970 World Cup, but this proposal was ultimately rejected.[11] The South African FA was suspended by FIFA in September 1965, and expelled from FIFA in 1976.[52]
Surfing
Surf culture traditionally self-identified as apolitical. The International Surfing Association (ISA) and professional surf tours had events in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, at which Native Hawaiian competitors were treated as honorary whites by organisers. The 1978 ISA World Championship and 1982 World Surf League held in South Africa were boycotted by Australia, though individual Australians competed in the latter event. Australian Tom Carroll, having competed since 1981 in South African events, became in 1985 the first professional to boycott them. Shaun Tomson and Wendy Botha respectively won the 1977 International Professional Surfers and 1987 ISA Women's World Championship as South Africans and later competed with acquired American and Australian nationality.[53]
Table tennis
The South African Table Tennis Board (SATTB), a body founded in contravention to the white South African table tennis board, was substituted for the latter by the International Table Tennis Federation. While the SATTB team was able to participate in the world championships held in Stockholm in 1957, team members were immediately refused passports by the government. It ruled that no black could compete internationally except through the white sports body.
The 1973 World Championship Tennis circuit tour was split into two groups playing parallel tournaments. Group B included a tournament in Johannesburg while Group A included anti-apartheid players Metreveli and Arthur Ashe.[57] Both groups included South African players.
In the Davis Cup, the South Africa team was ejected from the 1970 edition, in part thanks to campaigning by Ashe, and was banned indefinitely. In 1973, after Ashe reported that the country's tennis organisation was sufficiently integrated, it was reinstated,[37] but was placed in the Americas Zone instead of the Europe Zone where other African countries played. The 1974 edition saw the final scratched and South Africa awarded the Davis Cup after India refused to travel to South Africa for the final. While Ashe criticised India at the time, he later felt he had misread progress in tennis as broader progress in South African society.[37]Mexico and Colombia refused to play South Africa in 1975, as did Mexico again in 1976.[58]Britain, France, and the United States all threatened to withdraw from the 1977 edition after a vote to suspend boycotting teams narrowly failed.[58] In 1977 William Hester, president of the United States Tennis Association, said "We do not support or agree with the apartheid policy of the South African government .... But we have entered the draw and, unfortunately, we have to play South Africa — and in the United States."[59][60] During the 1977 match in California, U.S. manager Tony Trabert "hit two protestors with a racket".[59] At the 1978 rematch in Tennessee, attendance was low and there were "more police (150) than protesters (40) outside the gym."[61] In 1979, South Africa was banned from the Davis Cup until the end of the apartheid regime.[62]
By 1978, sports in which South Africa remained a member of the IF while being excluded from the world championships included fencing, field hockey, rowing, and water-skiing.[63]
Foreign eligibility
Some elite South African sportspeople competed internationally for another country, after becoming eligible through naturalization, length of residency, or other criteria applicable by the relevant IF. Examples include runner Zola Budd, whose UK nationality application was fast-tracked in time for the 1984 Summer Olympics;[64] and cricketer Kepler Wessels, who acquired Australian eligibility in the 1980s through residency, before returning to South Africa, for whom he played after the end of apartheid.[65] The 1994 film Muriel's Wedding recounts a fictional 1980s Australian's sham marriage to a South African swimmer seeking Olympic eligibility.[65]
End of apartheid
Negotiations to end apartheid began with the 1990 release from prison of Nelson Mandela and culminated in the Government of National Unity formed by Mandela after the 1994 election. In parallel with this transition, sports ended their boycotts and each sport's IF admitted a nonracial South Africa governing body. The European Community announced its member governments' ending of the boycott in June 1991.[66]India, which vehemently opposed South Africa's apartheid policy and was at the forefront of isolating the country internationally at all levels, ended its boycott in 1991 by inviting the South African cricket team to the country for an ODI series and subsequently allowed the Indian cricket team to tour South Africa for a Test and ODI series in late 1992. The country's hosting and winning of the 1995 Rugby World Cup was a powerful boost to post-apartheid South Africa's return to the international sporting scene.[67]
A 1999 academic paper argues that "sport fulfilled an important symbolic function in the anti-apartheid struggle and was able to influence the other policy actors, but generally to a far less significant extent than is usually asserted".[68]
United Nations Centre against Apartheid (July 1978). South Africa's Standing in International Sport. United Nations (New York). JSTORal.sff.document.nuun1978_20.
^Apartheid, United Nations Centre Against (May 1991). "Annex II". Register of Sports Contacts with South Africa, 1 January 1988 - 31 December 1990 and Consolidated List of Sportsmen and Sportswomen Who Participated in Sports Events in South Africa, 1 September 1980 - 31 December 1990. Notes and Documents. Vol. 91/11. United Nations Centre against Apartheid. pp. 39–95. JSTORal.sff.document.nuun1991_11.
^ abMallett, Cam; Sikes, Michelle M. (8 August 2021). "Paralympic protest: athlete activism, apartheid South Africa, and the international sport boycott in British para sport, 1979–1981". Sport in History. 42 (3): 347–365. doi:10.1080/17460263.2021.1963827. ISSN1746-0263. S2CID238770187.
^"South Africa". Commonwealth Countries - Introduction. Commonwealth Games Federation. Archived from the original on 25 January 2016. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
^Downes, Aviston D. (2002). "Sport and International Diplomacy: The Case of the Commonwealth Caribbean and the Anti-Apartheid Campaign, 1959–1992". The Sports Historian. 22 (2): 23–45. doi:10.1080/17460260209443382. ISSN1351-5462. S2CID145152124.; Seidel, Gill (1988). "'We condemn apartheid, BUT …': a discursive analysis of the European Parliamentary debate on sanctions (July 1986)1". The Sociological Review. 36 (S1): 222–249. doi:10.1111/j.1467-954X.1988.tb03333.x. ISSN0038-0261. S2CID145118176.; Booth, Douglas (1995). "Sports Policy in Australia: Right, Just and Rational?". The Australian Quarterly. 67 (1): 1–10: 3. doi:10.2307/20635800. ISSN0005-0091. JSTOR20635800.
Jones, Alan; Clarke, Andrew (31 July 2017). AJ: How Alan Jones Climbed to the Top of Formula One. Australia: Ebury; Penguin Random House. ISBN978-0143783831.
^United Nations Centre against Apartheid 1978 pp. 2–3
^Hardman, Alan R.; Iorwerth, Hywel (2012). "Sport, patriotism, and the Olympic Games". In Reid, Heather Lynne; Austin, Michael W. (eds.). The Olympics and Philosophy. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 256–272: 256. ISBN9780813136486. Retrieved 16 April 2016.
^ abFarred, Grant (2000). Midfielder's Moment: Coloured Literature and Culture in Contemporary South Africa. Westview Press. p. 139. ISBN9780813335148.
^Keech, Marc; Houlihan, Barrie (January 1999). "Sport and the end of apartheid". The Round Table. 88 (349): 109–121. doi:10.1080/003585399108306. ISSN0035-8533.