Burglars broke into the offices of the South African Rugby Union but left the World Cup trophy untouched and opted instead to steal whiskey, signed Springbok jerseys and laptops.
The break-in took place on Monday at an office complex in Cape Town’s northern suburbs, where the governing body’s headquarters are based.
The CCTV footage – shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, by South African journalist Yusuf Abramjee – shows gloved burglars entering an office space where the Webb Ellis Cup was being stored but not removing it. Instead, the perpetrators stole five signed Springbok jerseys, eight laptops and whiskey.
The silverware in the CCTV footage was initially thought to be the Webb Ellis Cup, but has since been confirmed as a different trophy.
SARU confirmed to Telegraph Sport that all of their trophies were safe after the burglary had taken place, while a Western Cape police spokesperson confirmed they are investigating two separate incidents on the business park where the SARU’s offices are housed.
The footage shows that the break-in occurred just after 9pm local time on Monday night, with local media reporting that Western Cape police had said that two well-dressed men entered the business park in a white Toyota Corolla before forcing open a ground-floor window and entering the premises.
Following the incident, South Africa’s director of rugby Rassie Erasmus tweeted a picture of the trophy with his dog.
South Africa were crowned world champions for a record fourth time in Paris last month, with captain Siya Kolisi lifting the famous trophy. A four-day celebration in the country followed the victory over New Zealand and President Cyril Ramaphosa declared December 15 as a public holiday “in celebration of the Springboks’ momentous achievement”.
Thousands packed the streets of Pretoria and Johannesburg for the Springboks’ victory tour, with South Africa fly-half Handre Pollard telling Telegraph Sport last week that he was left speechless by the unity – however fleeting – on show at the parade.
“I tried to step back for a few minutes to try and take it all in,” Pollard said, “because it’s unbelievable to see; a country with so many problems and so many groups of people against each other, the crime, all the stuff everyone knows about, to see them unified and united for that 20 minutes… it’s the smile on people’s faces who don’t have much to be happy about. I don’t have the words for that.”
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