New Zealand
'All Blacks would have toured Nazi Germany'
ESPN Staff
May 30, 2014

The All Blacks would have toured Nazi Germany "if Hitler had an interest in rugby", former Samoa centre Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu said in a controversial twist to the campaign to pressure New Zealand Rugby to play a Test in Samoa.

Fuimaono-Sapolu said in a video posted on YouTube that the All Blacks had not played a Test in any of the Pacific islands only because of financial reasons.

"There was a time when the United Nations asked all the nations in the world not to have sporting relationships with apartheid South Africa," Fuimaono-Sapolu said in the video.

"They asked the whole world to do that ... but there was one country that decided not to listen. That country was New Zealand, and that team was the All Blacks. And the reason was for money.

"That's the worst reason ever. The chasing of money. Because it justifies the killing of innocent people.

"If Hitler had an interest in rugby and fronted the money and showed the All Blacks, told them to come tour Nazi Germany, the All Blacks would."

The outspoken former Bath and Gloucester centre previously courted controversy in 2011, when he called the International Rugby Board "muppets" for charging him over Twitter attacks he made on the board and a referee.

The board brought a misconduct charge against Fuimaono-Sapolu after he called referee Nigel Owens a "racist, biased prick" in the wake of Samoa's 13-5 loss to South Africa. He also called the IRB a "joke" and said officials should "kiss my bum".

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