Springboks free to travel to World Cup after group drops race case

South African plaintiffs have dropped a legal attempt to stop the Springboks from playing in the Rugby World Cup in a dispute over a lack of black players in the squad.

More than 20 years after the end of apartheid, South Africa's fraught race relations have been highlighted by anger over just nine black players being named in the 31-man squad for the tournament in England.

A little-known political party, the Agency for New Agenda (ANA), brought the urgent court application to try to prevent the side flying out to the World Cup, which starts on September 18.

The case, which was never thought likely to succeed, cited sports minister Fikile Mbalula and the country's rugby union, SARU, as respondents.

After a day of legal negotiations on Wednesday, Judge Ntendeya Mavundla said the ANA had agreed to drop its application for the Springbok players to be forced to surrender their passports.

"In terms of the ... players who are supposed to go abroad, my understanding is that action is no longer sought," Mavundla said at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, South Africa's administrative capital.

Mavundla, nevertheless, criticised the slow pace of racial reform in the country since the end of white-minority rule in 1994. "It cannot be that, 21 years down the line, transformation is at a snail's pace in all sectors," he said.

He committed the court to investigating the matter further, declaring it to be an issue of "national interest" for South Africa.