South Africa's minister of sport and recreation Tokozile Xasa says she will not retract her statement about race being a factor in Ashwin Willemse's actions last weekend, when he stormed off the SuperSport set.
The former Springbok winger walked off a live Super Rugby broadcast, accusing co-presenters Nick Mallett and Naas Botha of 'patronising' him, and appeared to imply that he had been referred to as a 'quota' player in a derogatory way.
The three presenters met with employers SuperSport and parent company MultiChoice on Monday to discuss the matter, and the companies released a statement saying they could find no evidence of racism. They added that their investigation would, however, continue.
Xasa, who on Sunday released a statement calling for Mallett and Botha's jobs, said she stood by her assertion that racism had been involved, despite SuperSport's findings.
She said in a new statement on Wednesday: "I still stand by the statement on the Willemse issue.
"As South Africans, we are sports fanatics and even when we don't go to the stadiums, we sit in front of the TV screens and analyse the presenters and analysts.
"From the undertones that can be seen on the TV screen, we issued that statement."
For his part, Willemse released a one-line comment to the media on Monday, saying he was 'appreciative' of his employers' efforts to get to the bottom of the controversy, but has not made further comment.
Attempts by KweséESPN to reach Willemse have been unsuccessful thus far.