Nathi Mthethwa has “concluded that there remains and intractable and irrational minority of council members who are implacably opposed to changing the governance structure of CSA. Cricket cannot be held hostage by a minority of the members council.”
Telford Vice | Cape Town
CSA’s obstinate members council has a week to avoid South Africa’s teams being removed from the international arena in the wake of government triggering its lawful intervention into the crisis-prone organisation’s affairs.
In a letter to CSA dated Thursday, which has been seen by Cricbuzz, sports minister Nathi Mthethwa said he had “decided to invoke my powers” by “defunding, derecognising CSA”. In essence, CSA would be stripped of its privilege of calling its teams national representatives. Mthethwa wrote that he would “cause this to be published in the government gazette in due course at the earliest opportunity”. The gazette is usually published on Fridays, and this week’s edition does not contain Mthethwa’s decision. It is likely to be carried next Friday.
Should that happen, the most immediate casualty would be the two Tests and five T20Is South Africa’s men’s team are to play in the Caribbean in June. The women’s team would have to be withdrawn from the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in July and August next year. Sponsors and broadcasters doubtless would shun CSA’s non-international teams, prompting a likely terminal decline in the professional game.
The letter, which was addressed firstly to interim board chair Stavros Nicolaou and then to members council acting president Rihan Richards, said Mthethwa had “concluded that there remains and intractable and irrational minority of [council] members who are implacably opposed to changing the governance structure of CSA … Cricket cannot be held hostage by a minority of the members council”.
That follows a meeting on Saturday where the members council — CSA’s highest authority, which is comprised of the 14 presidents of the provincial unions and associates — voted against adopting a revised memorandum of incorporation (MOI) that would enshrine a majority independent board chaired by an independent. And that despite agreeing to do so several times, most recently on April 10.
Currently, seven members of the council also sit on the 12-member board and the president is a non-independent — a governance model that has been exposed as poor by umpteen ethical scandals going back years that CSA has endured. Among them is board members who attend all of their meetings being paid the equivalent of USD28,000 a year — more than those on most national boards despite CSA’s relatively lightweight status in the global game.
But, when it came to the crunch on Saturday, six council members voted in favour and five against, and there were three abstentions. Changes to CSA’s MOI need at least a 75% majority to be approved. That means 11 of the 14 would have to be in favour.
It seems the outcome of Saturday’s vote was engineered by an irregular interjection by the president of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic committee (SASCOC), Barry Hendricks, who attended the meeting as an observer. Even so, an opportunity for Hendricks to speak was gerrymandered, and he threatened to “suspend, fine and terminate the membership” should CSA not have its revised MOI pre-approved by SASCOC. And that despite SASCOC, which was asked by Mthethwa in September to help root out the rot at CSA, admitting later that month that it had failed to do so and passing the buck back to the minister.
Mthethwa’s intervention might prompt the members council to complain about interference to the ICC, which could suspend CSA. But that seems unlikely. Asked this week about the South Africa situation by the Mumbai Mirror — Cricbuzz’ sister publication — an ICC spokesperson said: “The ICC encourages members to work with governments to resolve issues. Not all government intervention is problematic and for the ICC to get involved it requires a formal complaint from our Members that it is unwanted. Should that happen we will evaluate the situation based on the facts provided and plan an appropriate course of action.”
The ICC did not object to the government’s role in establishing the interim board in November, after the dysfunctional elected board was pushed out of office. Mthethwa has kept the ICC in the loop about what he has planned to do and his reasons for doing so, and in Thursday’s letter he said he would do so again.
In a press briefing on Thursday, Nicolaou wrote the script to help CSA avoid the fate dangling over its head: “The members council can remedy the situation instantly, we believe, if they are to … pass a resolution that says, ‘It is our intention to get 75% or more of the affiliates voting in favour of accepting the [MOI], and we resolve this ahead of the time with a section 60’. That part of the Companies Act, Nicolaou said, “allows you to institute a special resolution by round robin [vote], and if everyone signs that round robin resolution in 24 hours, crisis averted”.
If that had to happen “the minister pulls back, we work towards an annual meeting, this interim board finishes its work, hands it over, and in parallel with all of this, we work through a nominations committee process to look at eligible, suitable and appropriate [independent] candidates for a new [elected] board. It’s not like there’s no process to resolve this, but the will and conviction [to do so must] lie with the members council.”
In a release on Friday issued to acknowledge receipt of Mthethwa’s letter, CSA said: “It is indeed a very sad day for our country, for cricket, for the millions of South African fans who love the game and the sponsors who have committed to cricket and its grassroots development. But it is a specifically sad day for the players, staff and others whose livelihoods are at stake.
“The [interim] board commends the majority of the members council who support good governance and voted in favour of a modern governance structure for cricket. It is deeply disappointing that a self-interested vocal minority voted against change while three members chose to abstain. These actions have now brought the game to its knees and will cause the greatest crisis since readmission.”
That was in 1991, when South Africa emerged from isolation that had started in 1970 in reaction to the then government’s racist apartheid policies. It seems lessons have not been learnt, neither in the 21 years that South Africa were in the cold, nor in the 30 years since they have been back in the fold. How long would the remaining recalcitrant council members be willing to see the country’s teams banished this time?
First published by Cricbuzz.
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