[1] Eliota Sapolu Fuimaono. Photo Reuters The disciplinary hearing for Samoa centre Eliota Sapolu Fuimaono, which was adjourned on Tuesday when he failed to appear, will be resumed on Wednesday, World Cup organisers said.
Sapolu Fuimaono faces disciplinary measures after labelling Welsh referee Nigel Owens "biased' and a "racist" on social networking website Twitter in the wake of his side's 13-5 World Cup loss to South Africa on Friday.
The 30-year-old, who was banned from all rugby until he attended the hearing, later said he was unaware when the initial meeting was to have taken place.
The Samoa Rugby Union (SRU) issued a statement on Wednesday distancing themselves from his comments and saying they had tried unsuccessfully to contact the player by various means to inform him of the hearing.
"The SRU supports the RWC 2011 disciplinary process and urges Eliota to make contact with the team immediately," it read.
"Furthermore the Union would like to state that comments made by Eliota on New Zealand television are totally unrepresentative of the Samoa Rugby Union and the team and are exceptionally disappointing by a senior squad member who is supposed to be an ambassador for Samoan Rugby."
Sapolu Fuimaono, a trained lawyer, said in a television interview on Tuesday that the International Rugby Board had been "blatantly unfair" in their treatment of tier two nations and he did not think he would get a fair hearing from them.
"I'm more likely to get an unfair hearing than a fair one," he added.
The Samoan had previously apologised and escaped punishment for an earlier outburst on Twitter in which he compared the scheduling of Samoa's World Cup matches to the holocaust.
Organisers said he had been issued with a formal warning for that initial outburst. Samoa exited the tournament after the loss to South Africa.
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