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RFU statement: Tom Curry and Bongi Mbonambi
By Liam Heagney
The RFU have given its full support to England back row Tom Curry for raising the racially abusive behaviour he allegedly experienced when playing in last Saturday’s Rugby World Cup semi-final.
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It was announced on Thursday that a World Rugby investigation had closed as they found insufficient evidence at this time to proceed with charges against Springboks hooker Bongi Mbonambi.
The statement read: “The RFU fully support Tom Curry in raising the racially abusive behaviour he experienced whilst playing for England against South Africa.
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“During last Saturday’s match between England and South Africa, Tom Curry reported to the referee that he had been racially abused by Mbongeni Mbonambi.
“The subsequent World Rugby investigation were informed by Tom Curry that he had also been the victim of the same abuse, from the same player, in the 2022 autumn Test. World Rugby have today announced their decision not to bring charges in respect of either incident.
“The RFU are deeply disappointed by the decision taken by World Rugby. The decision not to put the evidence before an independent disciplinary panel has denied the disciplinary process the opportunity to hear Tom Curry’s voice and to independently assess his account of these serious events, together with the other available evidence.
“In their continued full support of Tom, the RFU together with the England squad, condemn the disgusting abuse he and his family has received on social media as a result of his having had the courage to put unacceptable behaviour that has no place in society or on the rugby field, in the public eye.
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“Abuse of any kind is not acceptable and goes against the core values of rugby.
“It is important that it is safe and acceptable for everyone involved in rugby union to raise concerns, and the RFU continue to encourage everyone to report any unacceptable behaviour in the game.”
Despite the online abuse, Curry was named on Wednesday by England coach Steve Borthwick to start this Friday’s bronze medal match in Paris versus Argentina.
Mbonambi, meanwhile, was included on Thursday morning in the Springboks XV to start Saturday’s World Cup final versus New Zealand.
Shame…..poor Curry……Bongi is nasty to him……RFU is deeply disappointed…….lol……I thought you would be used to disappointed by this time…..😉
Curry must be the biggest c*** if he’s been called out twice now. He certainly looks it!
“The RFU fully support Tom Curry in raising the racially abusive behaviour he experienced whilst playing for England against South Africa.”
Well there is a ton of tape from the 38 cameras and 16 microphones, plus plenty of witnesses. And, whilst it is hard to prove a negative, this is pretty close. The cameras were not magically switched off at any point.
Many sensible people will reasonably conclude that this was a cynical move by Curry. And many people that understand the impact of false allegations will sympathize with Bongi.
Someone should explain the presumption of innocence to the RFU folks.
No point, you can’t get through to adults like them, and theyre like a parent coddling Curry in this case. Ones that fully support bratty behaviour as entitled c***’s themselves. This is really the hill that Curry is trying to climb, unfortunate if his believed allegations are right but still ultimately not worth so much news or discussion.
+ Tom Curry reported to the referee that he had been racially abused by Mbongeni Mbonambi +
what I heard was the following: “Sir, sir, what if their hooker calls me a white c@#$?”
to me that is stating a POSSIBILITY in the future, not a factual allegation of something which actually had happened ….
strange story …..
I still wantbto discuss the fact that an English public school tosser wants to claim racial prejudice…. That's like HF Verwoerd claiming a moral superiority because Jacob Zuma is corrupt.
We started with an extremely implausible allegation, and ended with an even more implausible "no evidence". It does not reflect well on Curry.
If it took place then Curry presumably could identify the moment in the game. Given that both players are forwards it is more or less certain that this would have happened close to play, and there are 38 TV cameras in the semi-finals, many of which would have been trained on near-the-ball action, so they would have caught the moment from various angles. There are 16 pitch microphones and 5 more atmosphere microphones. Additionally there were witnesses all around. It's not that there is no evidence, but that none of the huge corpus of video, audio and witness evidence supports the allegation.
Abuse is never OK, and we should all stand by Curry in that regard. Nonetheless, his actions are hard to interpret in a way that is complimentary to him. Many will look at this story and reasonably conclude that it was probably cynical behavior on Curry's part.
I don't take your argument at all it was cynical behaviour. I'm fairly sure Curry is well aware of the gravitas of his allegation. Regardless if it happened, he clearly thinks it does. Also what advantage does he gain by reporting it after the game? England and him do not benefit. They could have just left it as in the game.
If we're being cynical I'd imagine if there wasn't a world cup final this weekend World Rugby would not have been so quick to dismiss it.
The handling of the situation doesn't reflect well on anyone, Siya is the only one who has come out with any credit. The 3 organizations involved and the 2 protagonists both now have this hanging over them.
RFU and in a very un Borthwick approach have come out incredibly strong, as pointed out no use of the word alleged but I'm sure that statement was fairly well reviewed….so whatever Curry has said they strong back him. Equally South Africa are backing their guy, but appealing to potentially make fun of the incident in that video coincidentally appearing on social media is pretty classless.
And finally the Afrikaans language defence while very plausible, clearly would be happening repeatedly in the game from many players. It seems unlikely that Curry would not be able to distinguish between this versus a specific individual / event plus check with whatever his teammates would be hearing. Again he could just have misheard but the sensible approach would have been World Rugby to let Bongi play and then have a further review after the final.
Where do you get all your numbers from?
British press doing a great job at turning Curry into a victim spearheaded by the oh so self-righteous but simultaneously dirtiest cesspit Dailymail.
"The RFU fully support Tom Curry in raising the racially abusive behaviour he experienced whilst playing for England against South Africa." That is pretty slanderous and crucially, the word 'alleged' is missing.
Oh shame poor Curry feel heart sorry for the guy that deliberately tried to ruin a man’s reputation to get an advantage in the scrum, next the RFU will campaign to ban the Afrikaans language as it offends their players boo hoo
“The RFU are deeply disappointed by the decision taken by World Rugby. The decision not to put the evidence before an independent disciplinary panel has denied the disciplinary process the opportunity to hear Tom Curry’s voice and to independently assess his account of these serious events, together with the other available evidence.” That’s absolutely dreadful. “…to independently assess…” is a split infinitive. Awful grammar.
ABuSe of Any KInd iS noT ACCEptAblE anD goES AGaInsT the CoRe ValuEs OF rUgBy
This is very interesting. Not one allegation but two, involving the same player. Does Curry have an overactive imagination or is something really ugly lurking at the heart of the Boks scrum? Looks like we won’t find out this time. Maybe the third time?
To be fair I suspect there was just no evidence..As a NZ fan I believe I'm also seeing a good spirit among this Boks team with Siya as captain. As racial harmony and freindship is the desired outcome then this should be dropped now. The wisest man in Athens was the guy who knew what he didn't know. I wasn't there - were you?
He said, “Wyd kant” which means wide side. Which the Ebglish subsequently played and almost made a try. Relax and stop whining
It’s impossible to investigate a “he said she said” allegation. “Yes you did”. “No I didn’t”. End of.
Yep. One can't go to court with no case.
This has really put a dampener on what has been an amazing WC. I don’t condone any racist behavior, and also don’t condone any cynical and unsportsmanlike behavior. I have watched rugby between the Boks and all opposition for 5 decades, and the games have always been hard, but fair. Except a few against England( the game at Twickenham a few years back comes to mind). I hope I am not generalizing but the way England plays gets under the skin of almost every rugger nation, and often leads to this type of shit. I hope Borthwick creates a team that plays hard, fair but NOT cynical in its approach.
Fair. I though the lions tactics in SA were proper dodgy. Was watching with Kiwi eyes. Manu putting his arm round the neck of the boks 9 in the semi was just crap behaviour. I saw Curry get penalised in SA for lifting the bok front row at scrum time. So lame…. Hopefully we'll get a good ol' fashion bokkie/abs thriller and none of the lame ‘ in your face’ nonsense. I don't mind people celebrating or a bit of back chat between the packs. I just can't be a substitute for good rugby.
I fully appreciate that I am an old school dinosaur in regard to my social views and general outlook on life, how far rugby has changed from the game I started playing in the 70s as a boy, through to the mid 90s is starkly laid bare by this name calling whataboutery we witness now.
On the field you go hard at it, after the final whistle it’s shake hands have a beer & move on.
From the virtual signalling bollocks we see now at the beginning of games with a minutes silence for events that have fuck all to do with rugby or indeed sport more generally, to players running off to tell teacher about the nasty boy that called him names.
With endless stoppages for tmo referrals and water breaks, rugby is hard enough to watch now, without all this after the fact fuckwittery.
The sour grapes have now turned into proper sour whine
vrot curry more like it, really poor form from the poms, completely in their character!! Why has he not been cited for his no arm tackles which can end people's careers! World Rugby living up to its corrupt name!
So corrupt that Bongi hasn’t been banned and is playing in the final, what will World Rugby do next. I can only imagine.
Well said RFU. Mbonambi will now always be tarnished as a racist. Hope the crowds boo him and let him know.
Wyd kant much?
enjoy being the victim hope it go’s well for you
Allegedly. That’s the key word. Zero evidence that implicated CURRY in the “racial slur”Bongi shouts everything in the OPEN whether it’s WYD KANT or WIT KANT (Curry domdoos weet nogsteeds nie wat dit beteken nie) NO evidence showed Bongi saying it DIRECTLY to him.
True but zero evidence he didn’t say it either, the fact Curry suggests this happened in the autumn would suggest there maybe is something more there.