Samoa slam Sapolu no-show as W.Cup hearing resumes

Samoa rugby chiefs condemned controversial centre Eliota Fuimaono Sapolu's non-appearance at a disciplinary tribunal as they urged him to co-operate when the hearing resumed on Wednesday. Sapolu was provisionally banned from playing all rugby on Tuesday after calling Welsh referee Nigel Owens "racist" in a Twitter message following a 13-5 World Cup defeat by South Africa last week that ended Samoa's involvement in the tournament. It was the latest outspoken Twitter post from Sapolu who, after Samoa's loss to Wales, said World Cup organisers were guilty of "slavery" and a "holocaust" for the way teams such as his had to play twice in four days while the Welsh had a week off. Sapolu's ban, set to be looked at again when the hearing resumed at 2pm local time (0100GMT) here on Wednesday, was imposed in part as a result of his failure to turn up to Tuesday's original proceedings, also in Auckland. In a television interview here on Tuesday, Sapolu said: "I've only recently found out there was a hearing...I had absolutely no idea." But a statement issued by the Samoa Rugby Union on Wednesday, before the hearing resumed, said they had made numerous efforts to reach Sapolu. "Despite repeated contact attempts, his appearance on New Zealand television and his apparent location in Auckland, the Union and the team are yet to hear from Eliota since the team dispersed in the weekend," the statement said. "The SRU supports the RWC (Rugby World Cup) 2011 disciplinary process and urges Eliota to make contact with the team immediately." Sapolu, in a television interview on Tuesday, reiterated his complaint that there was "so much injustice" for Samoa, saying: "We always get bad referees, we always get the stereotype that we don't know how to play rugby, the stereotype that we're thugs, we're violent, we're stupid -- we always get that." He also defended his previous reference to the Holocaust. "When you get apartheid, when you get the Holocaust, when you get slavery, you have a group of people treating another group of people like crap, a group of people thinking they're more superior and they can do whatever they want. "Now obviously in this instance there wasn't a culling of six million Samoans or six million Jews -- sorry, six million rugby players -- but essentially the root of that evil was 'I am allowed to treat this person like shit'. "So there's a parallel there, albeit a very small one." But Samoa officials, who insisted they were grateful for the "ongoing commitment" of the International Rugby Board to Pacific Islands rugby, said the 30-year-old Sapolu's latest remarks were "totally unrepresentative" and "exceptionally disappointing".