New Zealand team manager refutes racial remarks allegation

St Peter's, Antigua, Apr 3 (UNI) As if the existing problems were not enough for the 'beleaguered World Cup', a row now has suddenly erupted over alleged off-field racist remarks made by the New Zealand players creating yet another headache for the organisers.

'The Antigua Sun' with a screaming headline front paged a story alleging that some Kiwi players made racist comments to the catering staff at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium here.

The paper however did not mention the names of the players, but dropped enough hints to make out that New Zealand cricketers were involved in the recent controversy.

The paper claimed the Kiwi cricketers as saying ''Good morning niggers'' to the employees of a catering company positioned at the newly built stadium before their World Cup Super Eight match against West Indies last Thursday.

However, the New Zealand team manager Lindsay Crocker strongly refuted the story saying that he had investigated the allegation jointly with the International Cricket Council's operations director Michael Hall.

He claimed that the staff members who had been talked to have said thought that they heard the word ''nigger'' used during a conversation between some members of the team.

''We became aware of rumour being spread among the working staff that there was a racial comment made in the players' lounge when everyone was assembling,'' Crocker said.

''We immediately inquired from the catering staff and found that there were three or four people in the room at the time. But they weren't able to tell me who they were,'' he said, adding, ''they weren't sure if they heard it accurately, they didn't hear any other comments.'' Later, terming the story baseless, the team manager said there was no great substance to this claim as there was no direct complaint or allegation made from the staff members.

UNI