Sporting Boycotts

• It was also selectively banned from much of test match cricket
• Campaigners continued to pressure sports bodies to exclude South Africans in tennis and rugby
• The highpoint of protest occurred at the 1981 Springbok tour (rugby) of New Zealand in which thousands protested,invaded pitches and ended the tour
• In the 1985 UN International Convention Against Apartheid in Sports
• Sports are a key interest in much of South Africa’s white communities, so their exclusion from the international arena was more widely felt than other sanctions
• The initial goal was to de-racialize South African sport but by the early 1980s it was aimed at forcing the government to abandon apartheid
• While there is little evidence that it directly contributed to the De Klerk government’s decision to negotiate
• The sports boycott was perhaps the most obvious sign to the public that the world did not approve of their country’s policies