Spain captain Ivana Andres has issued an apology on behalf of the squad to the Maori people of New Zealand after a video surfaced of four players mocking the haka.
Last week, a clip appeared on Spain’s social media channels showing several team members mimicking the traditional dance before erupting into laughter alongside the caption: ‘We are already acclimatised’.
The video, which was taken during Spain’s first training session in New Zealand after touching down ahead of the , was immediately met with criticism and promptly deleted.
A similar incident involving Netherlands player Merel van Dongen was met with a swift apology, but for the past week Spain’s squad have not addressed the incident.
On Monday, however, captain Andres read a statement to elders and members of the local Rangitane O Manawatu iwi (tribe) as they were welcomed to their Palmerston North training base, apologising for the video and presenting their hosts with a Spain shirt.
‘We’ve only been in Aotearoa New Zealand for a few days and we have so much to learn about your culture,’ said the Real Madrid centre-back in Spanish, before it was translated into English.
‘Therefore, thank you so much for the kindness to dedicate a few minutes of your wisdom, especially in such an important moment as Matariki [Maori New Year].
‘We’d also like to see Matariki as a way to renovate our excitement, and for us to learn to enjoy, to share and to reach for new goals and to ask for forgiveness for our mistakes, and to learn more each day.
‘We know how important mana is for Maori people, and therefore we’d like to celebrate that by giving you a jersey of our team.
‘This jersey represents our mana, our skin, our blood, our sweat and our tears. This shirt represents everything we have to fight for, our sacrifices, our victories, and we hope that you see the privilege we have of playing this tournament in your land.’
Rangitane O Manawatu speaker, professor Meihana Durie, accepted the apology, saying: ‘We had seen what had happened last week and as a people we guard our taonga, the haka, very vigorously, but the amazing thing about our tikanga is it allows for those sorts of things to be corrected and atoned for, and certainly this morning we agreed that they did a wonderful job of bringing forth a very authentic apology for what had happened.
‘We didn’t want to focus too much of our energy and korero on that but we accepted the apology, not just for Rangitane but for Maori.
‘Their words came from the heart and there was an acknowledgement that they understood the haka is very precious, not only to Maori, but to all of Aotearoa. In terms of what happened today at the powhiri [greeting], today was a very good outcome.’
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