“The time has now come for those recalcitrant affiliates on the members council to act in the best interests of cricket.” - Stavros Nicolaou, CSA interim board chair.
Telford Vice | Cape Town
CSA’s interim board has stopped just short of accusing the members council of vote-rigging, and warned that South African cricket’s dwindling pool of sponsors is uneasy at the council blocking attempts to improve the organisation’s governance structures.
That follows Saturday’s decision by the council, CSA’s highest authority, to reject proposals for a majority independent board that would be chaired by an independent director — as recommended in the 2012 Nicholson report. CSA at first agreed to implement Nicholson, but has repeatedly reneged on that commitment. Its ongoing refusal to keep its word is tied up with the fact that, as currently constituted, seven members of the board also sit on the council — which is formed of the presidents of CSA’s 14 affiliates and associates. That leaves room on the board for only five independents, none of whom is the chairperson.
A slew of governance crises going back more than three years prompted South Africa’s government to intervene. Under pressure from sports minister Nathi Mthethwa, CSA’s board resigned reluctantly and was replaced in November by an interim structure that was given a mandate, by Mthethwa, to implement Nicholson. The council at first fought against accepting the interim board, and its decision on Saturday hints that little has changed in the council’s over-arching instinct of self-preservation — even if that means the game itself can go to hell.
Cricbuzz has learnt that, on Saturday, Boland, Northerns, Free State, Border, Eastern Province, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga voted against amending CSA’s memorandum of incorporation to make provision for a board comprised of seven independent and four non-independent — or council members — as directors, and to agree that the board should be chaired by an independent director. Gauteng, North West, South Western Districts, Western Province and Easterns were in favour of those proposals while Northern Cape — headed by Rihan Richards, the acting president of the members council — punted for an equal split of independent and non-independent directors.
It’s against that background that a board statement landed on Thursday slamming the council’s behaviour. The statement said the interim board had been in discussion with the provincial presidents because “it appears that some of the affiliate votes [from Saturday’s meeting] may not have been recorded accurately and/or there may have been some misunderstanding regarding the interpretation of certain principles including the principle of ‘independence’ of a future board”. A vote “not recorded accurately” would, in many minds, suggest corruption.
The release quoted interim board chairperson Stavros Nicolaou, a pharmaceutical expert prominent in South Africa’s fight against Covid-19, as saying the council was “seeking to engage in lawfare by defending the indefensible” in its attempts to stave off the board restructure. “It is nine years since the Nicholson report,” Nicolaou was quoted as saying. “The time has now come for those recalcitrant affiliates on the members council to act in the best interests of cricket and find themselves on the right side of history.”
The release said CSA’s “commercial partners” had “indicated” to the interim board “their discomfort with the latest stonewalling by the members council” and said there was “widespread consternation” among the public and the players, whose “very livelihoods are at stake if CSA continues to flounder”.
In a release on Wednesday, the South African Cricketers’ Association (SACA) “noted with shock and disappointment the actions of the members council in not agreeing to the proposals put forward by the interim board”. SACA chief executive Andrew Breetzke was quoted as saying: “The consequences of the decision taken by the members council could be devastating to our game. Ironically the very existence of the individual provinces may be in peril as a result of their decision as CSA’s financial sustainability will be placed under further pressure.” SACA president Khaya Zondo was quoted as saying: “The events of the past few days are evidence that the best interests of the game we love are not being protected. We therefore urge the members council to review their decision and move in a direction that will benefit the game.”
In a bilious statement of its own on Saturday the council railed against “the assertion” that it had “disappointed the cricket community” as “unfair and unfortunate”. It is unlikely to find much support for its position. One of South Africa’s most senior players told Cricbuzz privately this week: “Just when you think the new guys are changing things they [the members council] do the same things.”
First published by Cricbuzz.
Comments
No comments yet. Start the conversation.