South Africa's world champion rugby team might not be the Springboks any more, after an impassioned national debate on changing the 102-year-old emblem which critics say smacks of the apartheid era.

The South African Rugby Union (SARU) and the sports ministry have agreed that the team will adopt the symbol used by all the other national teams, the King Protea flower.

The springbok will remain on the jerseys, with the protea over the heart and the lithe antelope on the right side, Saru announced on Monday.

The change has inspired intense debate, with parliamentary sports committee chairman Butana Komphela leading the push for the Boks to make the switch.

"The issue of replacing the Springbok with a recognised national emblem was long overdue," Komphela told AFP.

"The sign carries a long history of racial divisions," he said.

Rugby in South Africa remains a white-dominated sport, but some argue that racial barriers were broken in 1995 when former president Nelson Mandela lifted the World Cup trophy, wearing a Bok jersey, after South Africa's victory.

Komphela said Mandela's action was a matter of convenience rather than conviction.

"It is a known fact that even Mandela himself allowed the team to use the Springbok emblem for the World Cup only as they had already made orders for the kit bearing the Springbok," Komphela said.

"He simply did not want to rock the boat before the big event, he even told the rugby captain at the time (Francois Pienaar) that they must not forget that the Springbok should go," Komphela said.

Saru says the "Springbok" was born in 1906 when a nickname-less, whites-only national rugby side toured Britain.

During a trip to London zoo, the visitors spotted a herd of the antelope, common to east and southern Africa, and decided to name themselves Springboks.

In the apartheid years, blacks were barred from wearing the jersey, and some South Africans say the springbok is a painful reminder of the past.

Since the end of white rule in 1994, many city and street names have changed to erase connotations of the past.

Komphela says changing the Springbok emblem is long overdue, but not everyone agrees - and the debate doesn't divide clearly along racial lines.

A sports convention last October passed a resolution to remove the emblem, sparking an outcry from supporters of the national rugby team, which is a source of deep pride, especially for Afrikaaners.

Former Saru president Silas Nkanunu believes changing the logo will not address the real issues affecting the sport's development and its promotion among blacks.

"The move smacks of political power play," Nkanunu told AFP.

"Black clubs are in dire need of financial assistance, which is slowing the development of talent."

He said he did not understand how the emblem was racially divisive, saying some black players had adopted the Springbok even before South Africa's race-based rugby bodies unified into a national group in the early 1990s.

Despite the change, Saru spokesman Andy Colquhoun said he expected few people would stop calling the team the Springboks.

"We believe rugby has united the country like no other sport. When we won the 1995 World Cup, people of all races came out to celebrate the victory of the Springboks," he said.

"The 2007 World Cup attracted even bigger support for the team, regardless of race."

The timing of the change to the new jersey is still under discussion, mainly for logistical reasons, Colquhoun said.

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