Sex tape: Bok coach won't quit
Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:09
Troubled times: Peter de Villiers denies it all
Despite his emotional outburst, in reaction to allegations of a sex tape showing him in a compromising position, Springbok coach Peter de Villiers will not walk out on the job.
De Villiers claimed the allegations that he had been videotaped engaging in a sex act in public was a "smear campaign" to oust him, South Africa's first black Springbok coach.
He even threatened to "give the [Bok] job back to the whites" and denied categorically that he was involved in any sexual impropriety.
However, despite his emotional outburst in interviews with Sunday newspapers, sources close to the Bok coach told rugby365.com that he will not quit.
He will fight to clear his name and continue as coach.
While De Villiers and the South African Rugby Union (SARU) moved swiftly to deny that blackmail were involved in the saga - as reported in a weekend paper - they confirmed that an employee of SARU is facing a disciplinary hearing over "extraordinary claims" made about the Bok coach.
Chris Hewitt, the former Springbok Communications Manager, has been fingered as the 'official' behind the sex video scandal.
Hewitt is now facing an internal disciplinary hearing after allegedly approaching high-ranking officials with claims that such a video existed.
Hewitt was dropped as Springbok Communications Manager before the start of the Tri-Nations tournament in July, after apparently arriving late for a press conference - although other claims, such as language bias, making up players' quotes and leaking team announcements were also levelled at him.
Rayaan Adriaanse, a former Springbok Communications Manager who had his title re-adjusted to that of a Media/Communications Manager, has since returned to the Bok role in place of Hewitt.
SARU said in a statement on Saturday that "a company employee" - De Villiers has named Hewitt as the culprit - approached the Bok coach in Cape Town on August 15 and made "certain extraordinary claims".
"The employee was advised on August 25 that he would be called to an internal misconduct hearing, the charge sheet for which is still being prepared," SARU said in their statement.
Weekend reports said those claims included suggestions that De Villiers had been captured on CCTV footage in a car with an unknown woman in a parking lot in the Eastern Cape in April this year.
De Villiers also said he had been told that ANC MP Cedric Frolick - a member of the parliamentary portfolio committee on sport, who has been critical of his progress with race transformation - had a copy of the alleged tape.
However, Frolick denied any knowledge of a tape.
De Villiers was adamant that there was "no truth whatsoever" in these reports.
"I knew there were still people who do not want a black coach; I just never knew the extent people would go to discredit me," an enraged De Villiers told the Sunday Times.
De Villiers said the "nonsense" allegation had since grown into a "smear".
He also claimed that unnamed people opposed to transformation were behind the slurs, and that the storm had made him seriously consider resigning.
"My biggest problem is I've now got to sit down [with my family] - I've got my big daughter and one in matric at the moment, and people will stop them and ask them, and that's why I think I should walk away from this job and give it back to the whites," he told the Sunday Times.
"I'm not being nasty when I say that, but that's how I feel."
But sources close to the Boks coach - who has since gone to ground to avoid compromising the disciplinary hearing against Hewitt - said that he will not walk away from the job.
The Afrikaans Sunday newspaper Sondag quoted two officials who were with De Villiers on
his trips to the Eastern Cape this year, who said there "
simply wasn't time" for anything to happen.
"We travelled to East London and then out and there was no time for anything to happen," Jonty Goslett, De Villiers' agent told Sondag.
His former assistant Neil de Beer repeated a similar story.
