“Most of the time things are not reported as they are. Things are reported with a spin.” - Chris Nenzani works on his googly.
TELFORD VICE | Cape Town
CHRIS Nenzani has used an uncritical radio interview to take aim at more questioning sections of the media, apparently in an effort to deflect blame from the mounting failures of his tenure as Cricket South Africa (CSA) president.
Nenzani, who has headed the game in the country since February 2013 but is set to be jettisoned in September, has presided over losses that, even before the coronavirus pandemic hit, were projected to reach USD58-million by the end of the 2022 rights cycle. Several senior figures in the game have been suspended under his watch — notably chief executive Thabang Moroe, once Nenzani’s deputy, who is still being paid his full salary of more than USD20,000 every month despite being relieved of his duties on December 6 last year. Long-term sponsors have deserted CSA, some in the wake of five senior cricket journalists having their accreditation temporarily revoked on December 1. That damaging episode didn’t seem to teach CSA any lessons in good governance: Cricbuzz reported on May 13 that the organisation’s highest authority were about to consider a proposal to raise from 66% to 80% the minimum majority vote required to remove a sitting president or vice-president. The question has since been deferred to a workshop to be held after the pandemic has eased.
None of those alarming realities is in dispute, and it’s safe to say that public confidence in Nenzani and his board to run cricket in South Africa competently has crashed to an all-time low as a consequence. But you wouldn’t have thought so from the ramble Nenzani was afforded, unchallenged, on national radio on Monday. One of his fixations was on the fallout created when Graeme Smith, CSA’s director of cricket since December, told an online press conference on May 21 that he thought Sourav Ganguly should be the next ICC chairperson. Smith made clear that the view was his own, and it was reported as such. But Nenzani saw fit to weigh in later the same day in a release that made clear Smith was not speaking for CSA. Cricbuzz later learned that Nenzani himself harbours ambitions to chair the ICC.
“Most of the time things are not reported as they are,” Nenzani said on Monday. “Things are reported with a spin. For instance, Graeme Smith is interviewed talking about a number of things. And in his personal capacity he makes an opinion of what kind of leadership does he see for the ICC. He was totally within his rights. He was correct. He was expressing an individual opinion. But that created an impression that he is talking for CSA. That’s why I had to make that correction. That is the protocol that you follow in these matters. The ICC as not opened any nomination process. The board of CSA will make a decision to back a particular candidate or to nominate a particular candidate, and then give the chairman of the board of CSA — who sits on the board of the ICC — [authority] to drive that mandate and to exercise that mandate. Sometimes the board of CSA might say the chairman is given a discretionary mandate: he can use his discretion. That has not yet happened.”
Given the chance to reinforce his message, Nenzani said, “Because, in the manner that it was reported, it was as if CSA had taken that particular stance, and that therefore [Smith] was articulating a particular posture of CSA, which was not correct.”
Surprisingly, Nenzani was not asked to back up his assertion that Smith’s comments had been misreported. Cricbuzz could find no examples. CSA’s media head, Thamie Mthembu, was asked in an email on Tuesday to give credence to Nenzani’s claim. On Thursday, Mthembu replied: “The president was trying to highlight the protocol that comes with the processes that accompany the election of the leadership and particularly the importance of an in-country position, as this may relate to intra and interrelationships that exist between the country’s federations. Further to this, the president was highlighting how he read the narrative in the media spaces and how this was beginning to take shape from a public engagement point of view.” Not a word of a meaningful reply has been forthcoming on three other questions asked of Nenzani, one of them twice, in recent months. Neither has Nenzani appeared on any of the three online press conferences that Smith and CSA acting chief executive Jacques Faul, among other officials, have given since March 31. That stands in stark contrast to the discursive tangents Nenzani deployed on Monday, 321 words of which he used to both criticise the press and veer close to apologising to them. At no point was he asked to explain his generalisations — which will add to the theory that Nenzani only talks to the media when he is unlikely to be put under legitimate pressure.
“There’s a real situation [and] there’s a perceived situation almost in everything,” Nenzani began. “Unfortunately when you look at the real situation it may not be interesting. But if you look at the perceived situation it may be interesting and there could be a lot of people talking about what could have been seen as the perceived situation. We had challenges that we should have dealt with differently. But two things created a lot of dissatisfaction and unhappiness, and we appreciated that. The sport of cricket is not our sport. It’s the sport of the nation. We are given a particular period in history to take care [of it], to be the guardians and custodians of the sport, not to own it. It’s not ours. There were things we could have done differently. For instance, there was no need for the organisation to revoke the accreditation of certain journalists. That was unnecessary. When we became aware of it we immediately said that things must be addressed differently, and that those accreditations should be restored.
“The other thing was, we suspended senior executives in the organisation. A particular view was peddled that the suspension was without just cause. That was reported in detail. But the outcomes of the disciplinary processes are pointing to something else, which says there was a real situation which needed to be addressed. There was also a huge issue of what could be seen to be an image of a divided organisation, where some among ourselves — because of their proximity to certain powerful individuals — agitated for a particular outcome; calling for the president and the vice-president to go. Whereas the majority within our structures was not saying that. They were saying something different. Unfortunately that view, of the majority, was not put in the public domain. Nonetheless we had a responsibility to right the wrongs in the organisation. That’s what we’re busy doing and that’s what we have done.”
The blathering obfuscation was indeed a pity, because when Nenzani got going on the overarching issue of cricket’s role in transforming South Africa’s still racially riven society he was a clarion of boldly expressed wisdom: “Unfortunately there are some in our country in very powerful positions, who have means and resources, who continue to peddle this notion that when black administrators are in charge things fall apart. Even if nothing falls apart they expect things to fall apart. They anticipate that things will fall apart. There’s no truth in that. Let’s not say black administrators. Let’s say people sometimes make mistakes, whether you are white or black. And when you make those mistakes you must be accountable. There’s nothing wrong with having black administrators in power in this country.
“Remember this is a country that advances transformation, and transformation is not about replacing a white person with a black person. Transformation is about redress: equity, not equality. Where you affirm that people who had been in a disadvantaged position in the past, you ensure that as you address those challenges you give them an opportunity to ensure that they are advanced and get support so that they can excel. In this country you cannot ignore an issue that relates to democratic representation.
“One of the key aspects of transformation is to ensure that you talk to resource development in the areas where black people live so that you are able to ensure that you bring them up to speed and up to par with their advantaged and affluent counterparts. For instance, if you live in a [black residential] township or in a rural village the chances of you playing cricket at the top [level] in this country are minimal. In a rural school a boy or a girl who plays cricket there might play five matches in a season. But in a highly advantaged school they will play more than 25 matches in a season. Can they compete on par for selection? It’s not really possible. Therefore you need to advance and ensure that the ones who come from that kind of disadvantaged background are looked after and given opportunities to be able to compete on par and on a similar level with the ones who come from a very advantaged background. So the issue of race and transformation needs to be addressed. Transformation has nothing to do with the colour of a person but with the opportunities given to that particular person.”
Those once close to Nenzani remember “a really good man” who got too close to too many greedy, power-hungry people. “And then he got so far deep down with their ideology that it was too late and he couldn't get out of the mess and proceeded to further dig himself into a trench.”
In this of all weeks, the world — inside and outside cricket — needs all the good people, of every race and every persuasion, it can find. Nenzani should be among them. Is he? Like everything else in South Africa, it depends who you ask.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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