A female member of the Lions management team has been accused of barging into the team’s dressing room when some players are still naked.
For quite some time now, there have been very strange reports doing the rounds about a variety of issues behind the scenes at the Lions.
The rugby club’s operations and contract manager, Tracy van Ginkel, has particularly been accused of unprofessionalism in past reports, while a bizarre new allegation has now emerged.
According to IOL.co.za, Van Ginkel is now accused of unashamedly coming into the players’ dressing room at inopportune times, where she could see their “willies”.
“We as players are extremely frustrated with the fact that Tracy walks in and out of the change room as she pleases,” said an unnamed player. “We are naked, our willies out, and she will walk in and say very arrogantly, ‘nothing that I have never seen before’”.
The shocking story also quotes a couple of other players who seemed to verify the allegation.
“Some of us are married with children and this creates problems … we have in passing mentioned it to our wives/partners and got flack for it, resulting in major arguments and unhappiness on the home front,” one other player was quoted as saying.
Another added: “This makes the players totally uncomfortable as many of us are married men!!! … she embarrasses them when she acts like that!!!”
Earlier this year, Van Ginkel was also accused of misplacing the team’s kit on the tour, while there were suggestions that she had not prepared correctly in terms of the meal planning, leaving players to eat hot dogs instead of the usual nutritious meals.
“Another problem that happened is that we had to walk 2km to do our own washing, because Tracy didn’t want to pay for the washing at the hotel,” another source apparently stated at that time. “So we had to walk to a laundry place, they gave us €20 to wash our own laundry,” they said.
LIONS COACH HAS DISPELLED A DISCONNECT BETWEEN PLAYERS AND MANAGEMENT
According to a previous report on IOL, an anonymous survey among the squad members also revealed a host of lowly ratings were handed out to several members of the coaching and management staff. Van Ginkel apparently received a negative three.
However, coach Ivan van Rooyen has denied any animosity between him (and the rest of his coaching staff) and the players.
