Jacques Potgieter
Why is it that we seem to have so many soviet style political rodents rising to the top in management these days? I’ll accept that what Jacques Potgieter said may be offensive to some sensitive souls, but to fine him $20,000 for using the word “faggot” is ridiculously over the top.
ARU CEO Bill Pulver said: “We take the issue of homophobia in sport seriously and want to provide a positive environment for everyone involved in Rugby. Comments of this nature cannot be tolerated.”
The cowardly little tyrant Pulver needs to know that “homophobia” is a made up word and there’s never been any such ailment recorded in any doctor’s reference book. He also needs to swat up on the importance of freedom of expression within any democratic society. This isn’t North Korea Bill, although you obviously would like us to go down that road with your dictate that Potgieter will be required to undergo additional “educational and awareness training”, a euphemism for brainwashing.
Petty tyrant Bill Pulver fined a player $20,000 for using the word “faggot”.
People are not watching as much rugby as usual. In fact there are strong rumours the game is in dire financial straits. SANZAR’s idiotic rule changes have turned almost every game into a farce anyway, making the referee the star, and allowing subjective and frequently baffling penalty calls to decide the outcomes of too many matches.
Pulver and his painfully petty PC dictators would be far better ignoring such mundane on-field incidents and silly little girl complaints like Pocock’s, and focusing on trying to bring the crowds back.
TrueblueNZ 
Rugby Union in Australia is a distant third and heading downhill. At this stage TV revenues from South Africa are keeping Super Rugby going and keeping Pulver employed. The timid SARU are scared to take on people like Pulver but the advertisers and sponsors see the public leaving. The major sponsor, Investec, is a South African company and they will not like what has happened to Potgeiter, a South African.
Several years ago Compagnie Financière Richemont, owners of Dunhill, Cartier, Baume and Mercier, Montblanc and many more luxury goods companies and also the 6th largest corporation in the world, withdrew millions in advertising from a British Magazine for saying that Afrikaans is one of the ugliest languages in the world. Their problem was that the company is owned by a South African. Investec and SARU could take a leaf out of Johann Rupert’s book.
LikeLike
I hope they do. Nothing pisses me off much more than these institutionalized attempts to control thought and speech. Bloody appalling. The same kind of people once existed in Germany and suppressed criticism of the Nazi party and encouraged prejudice against Jews by the same methods. At the time, they thought they were doing the right thing too.
LikeLike