Boks send two home after reports of guest house 'tryst'
REACTION: Two members of the Springbok touring squad have been sent home after reports of an extra-marital tryst between the duo.
Weekend media reports claimed that veteran flyhalf Elton Jantjies and the team’s dietician, Zeenat Simjee, had an affair during a Springbok training camp in the build-up to the Rugby Championship.
In a media release, the Bok management confirmed that the two returned home from Argentina – where South Africa is preparing for the Round Five Rugby Championship encounter with Los Pumas.
“The Springbok management is aware of reports regarding Springbok flyhalf Elton Jantjies and team dietician Zeenat Simjee – between the training camp in Sabie and the Test match against New Zealand in Mbombela [Nelspruit] earlier this year,” the curt media release said.
“No team protocols were breached, but the individuals are returning to South Africa to attend to these personal reports and to eliminate any distractions to the team’s preparations for the Test against Argentina.”
The Bok management said “no further comment” will be made at this time.
According to the media reports Jantjies was seen entertaining Simjee at two different guest houses in the Nelspruit area.
Jantjies is married to Iva Ristic, with whom he has three children.
While the Boks’ media release suggests nothing was untoward in the get-together, the weekend reports claimed Jantjies and Simjee were meant to stay in the same hotel as the rest of the squad.
The reports also share some of the more ‘sordid’ details – such as the expensive alcohol and unpaid accounts.
Jantjies also reportedly asked a staff member at one of the guest houses if he knew who he is, after the staff member asked him to not make such a noise after receiving several complaints from fellow guests.
Guests staying at the guest house told the Afrikaans Sunday newspaper Rapport they were surprised to see, after Googling Jantjies’ wife, that he was entertaining another woman and not his wife.
It is not the first time this year that the 32-year-old Bok No.10 has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
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In May he was arrested at the OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg, following an incident on a flight.
He was charged with malicious damage to property of an airline he had flown with from Dubai to Johannesburg.
The charges were withdrawn in June.
His lawyer Nabeela Moola told AFP that charges had been provisionally withdrawn “based on the representations made to the state.”
Jantjies, capped 44 times by the Boks, was a member of the victorious Bok squads at the 2019 World Cup and against the 2021 British and Irish Lions.
Jantjies made his debut against Australia at Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria, in 2012.
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