Five burly rugby team managers broke down and cried as they described how their players' dream tour of South Africa turned into a nightmare.

Uruguayan club rugby team Lobos, from Punta del Este, is facing a crisis after a player and a supporter were arrested for an alleged gang rape in their Cape Town hotel. Two other suspects have yet to be identified.

Team manager Gonzalo Cortinas said on Friday that he had been horrified as details of the allegations emerged - claims which left the club's reputation in tatters.

Cortinas said the group arrived on April 11 for a 15-day tour. Just five days into the trip, they went out to experience Long Street's nightlife, and met a young woman.

After a night of partying, the players went back to their hotel with the woman, who had said she was too drunk to drive.

During the bail application this week, the Cape Town Magistrate's Court heard that video footage had been obtained as evidence. It allegedly showed a woman walking into the Protea Hotel in Sea Point, hand in hand with one of the men who was later arrested.

Hotel management was summoned more than five hours later by the team, who said a "woman would not leave" a player's room. Police said the team offered the woman an undisclosed sum of money to leave and not cause trouble.

"It became pesadilla - a nightmare," said Cortinas.

Families in the players' home town spent four years raising money for the tour by selling refreshments and T-shirts.

The team visited two rugby schools in the Cape and played a game at Drakenstein Prison, once known as Victor Verster Prison, from which Nelson Mandela was released.

Then came the rape allegations. Cortinas said: "They show us like criminals. Like rapers (sic). Our young people, they were all crying here and mothers crying in Uruguay.

"It was more than five years that we planned this tour. We expected a lot, not this."

The two accused, out on R20000 bail each, are a 24-year-old professional rugby player whose father is in the team's management, and a 40-year-old estate agent, who is a supporter. They may not be named, as they have yet to plead.

The pair told the court the sex had been consensual.

The men said that all they knew about the woman was that she was from Zimbabwe.

Cortinas said: "After a week that we were here, we are at the jail, at the court, with the paparazzi after us. We have spent so many days feeling so bad.

"One hopes that if you have a problem, it is because someone broke a bed in the hotel, not something like this."

The 28-year-old woman reportedly went to sleep in the hotel, but alleged she was woken three times by men having sex with her.

Police arrived at the hotel to find her sitting in the room in which she was allegedly raped.