Pablo Matera has been suspended and stripped of his captaincy for old racist tweets resurfacing. Team mates Guido Petti and Santiago Socino were also suspended for old tweets and all accounts have since been deleted.
The tweets ranging from 2011 and 2013 resurfaced this week and the Argentinian rugby board held an urgent meeting and suspended all three players with immediate affect. This is coming just weeks after Pablo Matera lead his country to their first ever win over the All Blacks and a momentous day for Argentine rugby.
“The Argentine Rugby Union strongly repudiates the discriminatory and xenophobic comments published by members of the Los Pumas squad on social networks,”
“Although the messages were expressed between 2011 and 2013, the Argentine Rugby Union condemns any expression of hatred and we consider it unacceptable that those who express them represent our country.”
the UAR said in a statement.
Matera has since made a statement saying
“I am very ashamed, sorry to all those who were offended by the barbarities that I wrote. At that time I never imagined who I was going to become. Today I have to own what I said nine years ago.”
The tweets have been deleted but screenshots are circulating the web in which Pablo said such awful things towards black people, as he even tweeted about “running over black people” in 2012.
Argentina will go into the final game of the tri-nations against Australia on Saturday without these players.