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Crusaders player slammed for racist on-air comments

Bryn Hall. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

NZ Herald

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New Zealand’s Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) has described a Super Rugby star’s comments as racist while clearing Sky TV of any wrongdoing in airing his comments.

Sky Sport show Kick Off was the subject of a complaint after an episode on June 13, 2019, saw Crusaders halfback Bryn Hall label All Blacks centre Jack Goodhue “a Jew”.

A regular segment of the show sees guests give out a ‘red card’ to a player of their choice while reviewing the previous week of rugby action.

That week saw Hall as the guest and Goodhue the target of the ‘red card’ because he was allegedly too cheap to pay for his wedding.

“I’m red-carding…Jack Goodhue for his mullet…the real reason why he’s running a mullet at the moment is that he’s engaged…doesn’t want to pay for his wedding, so he’s actually looking for Woman’s Day or Woman’s Weekly to try and get behind and pay for his wedding, so red card for being a Jew, Jack, so there you go mate.”

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The BSA labelled this remark as a clear example of casual racism.

“We consider Mr Hall’s comment to be ignorant and disrespectful. It is an example of casual anti-Semitism and such comments can contribute to the normalisation of racism,” a statement from the BSA read.

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“There is no room in New Zealand for casual racism and it is important that we all work hard to move away from this type of language. ”

However, the BSA ultimately concluded that the slur was not serious enough to warrant a breach of broadcasting standards.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5muWmMA4Pf/

“We do not consider that the comment contained the level of malice or nastiness required, nor did it amount to a sustained attack on a particular group as required, to find a breach of the discrimination and denigration standard.”

According to the statement, SKY TV apologised for “any distress caused as a result of this comment” and confirmed it had spoken to Mr Hall to “ensure this doesn’t happen again”.

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A spokesperson for The Jewish Council in New Zealand told Stuff the decision was “extremely disappointing and quite shocking”.

“It is unacceptable that the broadcaster should not be [held] accountable for saying such a thing,” Juliet Moses said.

This article first appeared on nzherald.co.nz and is republished with permission.

After a thorough and lengthy process, the Crusaders have decided to retain their name:

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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