Race taunts won't put me off GAA, says young player
Talented Teboga Sebala (above) has vowed to continue playing Gaelic football, despite being subjected to racist taunts last week while playing a match for his club, Eire Og. The GAA has issued a statement 'unequivocally' condemning the abuse.
A YOUNG GAA player who was racially abused at an under-14s championship match has said he will not allow the incident to put him off football and has vowed to keep on playing.
Talented 13-year-old Teboga Sebala yesterday described how a group of teenagers started yelling racist comments before a match he was playing for Eire Og against O'Hanrahan's, in Dr Cullen Park, Carlow.
"I've come across it before," said Teboga, who starts secondary school in September in Knockbeg College. "They were shouting racist comments and I felt angry and annoyed, but I turned around and forgot about it."
"A few of my friends tried to stop it, but it went on. It started when we were doing the warm-up, but went on for the whole match. I didn't hear exactly what was said but I could hear them shouting."
It is also claimed that a group of adults were encouraging the teenagers.
Teboga's Eire Og team won the match and will play in the championship final in the same venue on Tuesday.
But it wasn't until later in the week, when the incident appeared in a local newspaper, that Teboga, from Dolmen Park, in Carlow town, realised the extent of what happened in the stands.
"I only found out about it on Tuesday morning, when my manager told me. It was in the 'Carlow Nationalist'."
Teboga's father, Donemoore Mayo, said that a horrified onlooker and his wife had tried to defuse the situation but also came in for abuse.
"A lady tried to confront them and they also directed abuse towards her, and her husband took her away," the father of two said. "If he's playing somewhere and he gets racial abuse, he should just take it and take it easy, and get on with life.
"He didn't even tell us, but just let it pass. My friend came in and asked 'did you see your son in the 'Carlow Nationalist'?' We're trying to live with it.
"I told him not to tell me about such things because we don't want trouble with other people."
Teboga, who lives with his father, and his mother, Tsida Sebala, and sister Kimbly (11), is also a gifted soccer player and is due to have trials with Sunderland, Newcastle and Charlton.
"We had people over from the GAA," said Donemoore, who is originally from South Africa.
"They said they were sorry and were investigating everything and trying to follow everything up. They [the teenagers shouting abuse] should not be banned for life but they should be given a warning.
"He should continue to play because we want him off the streets and football keeps him off the streets."
Undeterred
Although Teboga has a different view on how to deal with his abusers than his father, he maintained that he will play on undeterred.
"I hope they never get in there to see a football match again but I enjoy the sport, it keeps me fit and I get to go places and make friends."
The GAA said in a statement last night that they "unequivocally" condemned reports of the racial abuse directed at Teboga.
"The GAA nationally, and its Carlow County Board, has strongly and unequivocally condemned reports of a serious racist incident at an underage game in Carlow where a player of African origin was verbally abused by spectators," the statement said.
"The Carlow County Board and its underage sector are currently having the matter fully investigated, with a view to having the perpetrators severely sanctioned.
"The board has already started this process."
- Fiach Kelly
