FREE SPEECH? SA Sports minister Gayton McKenzie has voiced his support of Dricus du Plessis despite the UFC champion's support of US President Donald Trump. Photo: Michael Sherman/IOL
Image: Michael Sherman/IOL
Gayton McKenzie on Sunday came out in support of Dricus du Plessis as an ambassador of South Africa, and hinting that the UFC champion’s affiliation with Donald Trump doesn’t matter.
Du Plessis defended his UFC middleweight title against American Sean Strickland in Sydney on Sunday, but the lead-up to the fight had been dominated by the SA fighter’s support of American president Donald Trump.
Du Plessis arrived at a pre-fight press conference during the week wearing a T-shirt which read "Trump prefers champions”.
This comes after Trump announced that he planned to cut funding to SA pending an investigation into alleged confiscation of land from white farmers. Trump also accused South Africa of treating”‘certain classes of people” badly. SA-born Elon Musk, and proud Trump supporter, also chimed in by saying President Cyril Ramaphosa had “openly racist laws”.
All these claims have been refuted by the SA government.
The SA minister of Sport, however, said on Facebook: “A Champion representing South Africa on international stage entering the ring wearing SA flag, I must now not support him because he did or said something I or you disagree with, you guys have gone mad. Well done Dricus du Plessis.”
The post was also accompanied by an old picture of Du Plessis holding the SA flag after a fight, which he did not do after his bout over the weekend.
Trump has also since offered offered asylum to Afrikaners in the US over SA’s Land Expropriation Act, which has been widely dismissed as the US President ‘peddling dangerous lies’.
In 2020 at the height of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, Du Plessis also spoke out about farm murders.
“South Africa is going through so much. Farm murders are taking the whole country by storm,” said Du Plessis at the time.
“People are getting murdered daily. Nobody in the world really knows what’s going on there. Stay strong, we can beat this battle. Let’s stop the farm murders, I want the world to see what’s happening in South Africa. It’s one of the most beautiful countries in the world that is being ruined by stuff like this.”