Samoa Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi has welcomed an International Rugby Board investigation into his comments during a recent radio broadcast in which he said hitting a test referee with a rock might be justified.
The IRB has written to the Samoa Rugby Union, of which Malielegaoi is chairman, requesting "urgent clarification" of the comments which, it said," may be in breach of IRB regulations governing the global game."
During his regular weekly program on Samoa's Radio 2AP, Malielegaoi described the officials who controlled the June 23 test match between Samoa and Scotland as "idiots" and suggested the Samoa team suffered racial discrimination.
Malielegaoi said "if the siren sounds and the referee continues the match unnecessarily, then a rock hitting his head would be justified."
AP