Gleneagles Agreement
The Gleneagles Agreement (Engl. Gleneagles Agreement ) was an agreement that on 15 June 1977 at the Conference of Commonwealth -Staaten in Gleneagles in Scotland was signed. The presidents and prime ministers of the Commonwealth countries agreed to support the international campaign against apartheid and to outlaw any sporting contacts with South Africa . Individual athletes as well as associations and teams were affected by this.
The agreement was in response to the boycott of the 1976 Summer Olympics by 28 African countries. These had ultimately asked the IOC to exclude New Zealand from the games because their rugby union national team had played in South Africa. With the Gleneagles Agreement, the signatories reaffirmed their determination to fight racism. They had already decided to do this in 1971 with the Singapore Declaration of the Commonwealth of Principles.
The agreement was undermined as early as 1981 when the New Zealand Rugby Federation, the New Zealand Rugby Football Union , invited the South African national rugby union team to play in New Zealand. Prime Minister Robert Muldoon , who had signed the agreement himself, let the association do it, as he believed that politics should not interfere with sport. This decision led to violent protests in New Zealand.
