Times Media
TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg
Cricket SA (CSA) chief executive Haroon Lorgat has admitted to offering journalists incentives not to publish certain stories, and says he will continue to do so.
However, an investigation has decided that he is not guilty of attempting to bribe reporters.
Lorgat has been cleared of wrongdoing by an independent probe commissioned by the International Cricket Council (ICC) into his possible involvement in the issuing of a statement by David Becker, who served as ICC head of legal while Lorgat was ICC chief executive and went on to act as a legal adviser to CSA.
Becker claimed the ICC were being led into questionable governance practices by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
At the time of the release of Becker’s statement, on October 6 last year, CSA were at a delicate stage of negotiations for India’s tour of SA this season.
The investigation’s report, a portion of which was released yesterday by the ICC, lists one of the allegations against Lorgat as attempts to “persuade a number of different journalists on separate occasions to delay and/or withdraw the story/David Becker media statement by offering to do something for them in return, allegedly bribing and eventually threatening the journalists”.
The adjudicator’s finding was that “while Mr Lorgat admitted in his statement that he offered (name redacted) a future interview in exchange for his agreement not to publish the media statement, there was nothing objectionable about Mr Lorgat’s conduct in this regard. The offer cannot be characterised as a bribe.
“I could not determine with certainty whether or not (name redacted) allegation was true based upon the evidence provided. Therefore, I make no definite finding of fact regarding the allegation by (name redacted).
“I did however determine that this did not merit further investigation. Even if (name redacted) allegations were true, this statement would not rise to the level of an attempted bribe and would not merit formal sanction against Mr Lorgat.”
At a press conference yesterday, Lorgat was asked if he had made the admission.
“And I would do it again,” Lorgat said.
Asked if he did not think that was questionable conduct, Lorgat said, “I have done it in the past; I have done it with you. You appreciated that in the past.”
When he was asked if he had a record of the past instance, Lorgat said, “I do.”
He did not offer details of his previous attempt to persuade the reporter not to publish a story.
The investigation found no evidence that Lorgat had knowledge of Becker’s statement before its release, knew its contents, nor that he was involved in its preparation.“I knew what I had done and what I had not done,” Lorgat said. “I was not going to fail cricket in SA and I not going to fail myself.”
Reporters who published Lorgat’s attempts to keep stories out of the press have been victimised by CSA. They remain accredited to cover matches but do not receive releases and advisories, and are ignored when they ask CSA for comment on stories outside of press conferences.
Asked why what CSA have called the affected journalists’ “special privileges” had been revoked and when they would be restored, Lorgat said, “That’s a matter I will deal with at another time when those journalists decide to do what is right and come up and explain their behaviour.”
The BCCI are known to be unhappy with CSA’s appointment of Lorgat as their chief executive because of a longstanding bad relationship between him and BCCI president Narayanaswami Srinivasan.
India shortened their tour from 12 to five matches, which cost CSA R319-million in lost revenue.
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