The South African rebel tours were a series of seven cricket tours staged between 1982 and 1990. They were known as the rebel tours because the international cricketing bodies banned South Africa from competitive international cricket throughout this period because of apartheid. As such the tours were organised and conducted in spite of the express disapproval of national cricket boards and governments, the International Cricket Conference and international organisations such as the United Nations. The tours were the subject of enormous contemporaneous controversy and remain a sensitive topic throughout the cricket-playing world. Origins Until Olympic exclusion in 1964 and the D'Oliveira affair in 1968, only white athletes had been allowed to represent South Africa in international sport, a reflection of apartheid society in South Africa from 1948, and the social conventions prior to that time. In 1971, an international sports boycott was instituted against South Africa to voice global disapproval of their selection policies and apartheid in general. South Africa subsequently became a world sporting pariah, and were excluded from the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup, Test cricket, and a host of other sports. The boycott effected measurable change on policy and opinion in sports selection – and cricket in particular. In 1976, the South African Cricket Union (SACU) was created to administer the game in the republic on a multi-racial, meritocratic basis: so-called "normal" cricket. However, this was insufficient to ensure South Africa's re-admission to international cricket. Inside the Republic, many non-whites resented "normal" cricket, which was seen as a feeble concession in the wider context of life under apartheid, and declined to take part. Outside the Republic, three of the six ICC Full Members - India, Pakistan and the West Indies - flatly refused to countenance re-admission until apartheid itself was dismantled. After a decade of isolation, cricket in the Republic was weak: standards, attendances and child participation were all falling. Overseas, the game had been revolutionised by the World Cup and World Series Cricket, but isolation had deprived South Africa of these commercial and competitive engines. In 1979, Doug Insole, an English representative on the ICC, had told SACU's Ali Bacher: "Until apartheid goes, you can forget about getting back into world cricket." Bacher and SACU felt obliged to act to "keep the game alive in South Africa". Since players were endangering their careers by breaking the boycott, SACU had to offer substantial sums to entice their