Ken Borland

The Cricket South Africa Board have brought in the services of a PR company to help polish their tarnished image, which is so bad at the moment that not even all the distractions of a racial witch-hunt have been able to disguise their complicity in the ugly shambles that the beloved game in this country has become.

Of course CSA have also engaged the services of a quarrel of lawyers to help them handle the numerous legal issues they are dealing with, the most recent of which is their failure to appear before parliament’s sports portfolio committee as scheduled on Friday.

The forensic report into the activities of suspended CEO Thabang Moroe and whether the Board itself is implicated in any misgovernance was bound to have been a hot topic in parliament on Friday, but CSA cried off and begged for a postponement because they said the report is not yet ready to be made public.

My legal friends tell me this is probably above board because if serious allegations are made by the report, it would need to be sent by CSA’s Audit and Risk Committee to lawyers in order to ensure due process is followed. But given that the report was finalised at the end of June, progress in this crucial matter has been glacial. Perhaps the sports ministry should apply some ‘global warming’ to the backsides of the recalcitrant administrators, whose behaviour is certainly indicative of people who have something to hide.

But more important than any PR company or even lawyers, CSA have to take notice of what their players are telling them. Their services are the very lifeblood of the game; without our top cricketers, the Proteas slide down the rankings, sponsors, crowds, viewers and broadcasters disappear, and the money dries up. Although that would surely chase away the self-serving vultures feeding on the game, it also creates a vicious circle because with less money, teams become less competitive and the cycle continues to spiral down into oblivion.

The current players, apart from showing their support for the heroic Lungi Ngidi and Black Lives Matter, have been largely quiet in terms of weighing in on all the issues that have been tearing cricket apart during Lockdown. Their union, the South African Cricketers’ Association, have quite rightly been taking up the cudgel and speaking on their behalf.

But the first few murmurings are starting to emerge of how desperately uncertain and unhappy the players are. There have been numerous reasons for top cricketers to leave this country for greener pastures over the last few years but the possibility of the entire professional game collapsing in this country could see the floodgates really open and get that vicious cycle spinning out of control.

While hearing those former players who are speaking out about previous discrimination and the pain it has caused is important and valuable, we have heard way too much from people who have either disgraced the game or who have based their accusations on factual inaccuracies.

I believe these charlatans have been pushed to the front of the choir to further the Cricket Capture agenda which has been in place ever since Moroe and his allies on the Board and in CSA management set it in motion.

Moroe’s temporary replacement, Jacques Faul, has now given up his efforts to clean up the game, forced out by a Board which actively worked against him. Director of Cricket Graeme Smith is clearly now the main target because there have been way too many spurious allegations made about his time as captain. Lest we forget, under his watch the Proteas became the best team in the world in all formats and were at their happiest in terms of unity and embracing diversity.

SACA are now coming under fire too and this fits in perfectly with Moroe’s agenda. The suspended CEO stated clearly his intention to destroy the power and influence the players’ union had in the game. He was trying to achieve this by causing racial divisions, having tried to engineer a split with all the Black African players leaving SACA. Sound familiar in terms of what is now happening?

Fortunately SACA have had a strong president and servant of the game in Omphile Ramela.

There is still hope for South African cricket. We still have incredible playing talent and there is so much love for the game in this country. South African sport has produced many tremendous administrators so they are out there.

But it is getting late. Short of doing what one provincial president recommended to me – “the CSA Board is now in such a bad place that in our culture we say you have to slaughter a goat to cleanse it” – one can only hope the CSA Members Council do the right thing at the AGM on September 5 and vote in people who are committed to saving the game, not parasitizing it.

South African Cricketers’ Association president Omphile Ramela on Wednesday said the leadership of Cricket South Africa has taken the game to the brink of “total collapse” and called for intervention at Board and management level.

On the same day that CSA announced chief commercial officer Kugandrie Govender as the new acting chief executive following the immediate resignation of Jacques Faul, the players’ union issued a statement slamming the organisation for the current crises, which they say threaten the future of the game in this country.

“Instead of facing these crises, CSA is embroiled in destructive politics at Board and management level. It is evident that cricket is unable to self-correct. With the CSA AGM looming, the reality is that many of the administrative challenges confronting the game are as a result of administrators failing to adhere to principles of corporate governance.

“A number of affiliates have crises of their own, and it is these structures that provide leadership to CSA. Before we see the total collapse of the game of cricket there needs to be a leadership intervention at Board and management level that is able to stabilise and transform both the game and the business of cricket,” Ramela said.

SACA said the level of crisis within CSA is now up to the point where the players themselves feel that their livelihoods as professional cricketers are threatened.

“SACA has engaged directly with players over the past few weeks and there is a growing realisation amongst players that their careers as professional cricketers are being threatened by the very organisation that should be nurturing them. SACA has consistently called for certainty and consistency in the governance and management of the game.

“The sudden resignation of both the President and Acting CEO is clear evidence that cricket in South Africa is at war with itself. Mr Nenzani owes all stakeholders an immediate explanation as to why he has stood down a mere three weeks before the CSA AGM, after he had refused to do so over the previous eight-month period despite calls to do so from key stakeholders within the game. Together with the sudden resignation of Dr Jacques Faul as Acting CEO, one can only deduce that the Board of Directors has yet again reached a level of dysfunctionality that threatens the existence of the game in our country,” Andrew Breetzke, the CEO of the players’ union, added.

The South African women’s cricket team’s hopes of playing internationally this year seem to be crumbling into dust with no real effort being made by the Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture to pay anything more than lip-service to their stated intention of uplifting women’s sport.

On Tuesday Cricket South Africa were forced to turn down an invitation from world champions England to play five women’s ODIs and two T20 internationals next month due to government not being willing to relax their international travel restrictions.

That would be understandable if it weren’t for the fact that the England and Wales Cricket Board had offered a chartered flight with all necessary health protocols to fly the Proteas team over. Government have also already granted certain sportsmen permission to travel overseas and compete. Repatriation flights and some business travel have also been allowed.

“It is frustrating that another opportunity for our Momentum Proteas to play against top-quality opposition has again had to be cancelled, but as always the safety of our players and support staff is the prime consideration, ” CSA director of cricket, Graeme Smith, said in a statement released on Tuesday.

Clare Connor, the managing director of England women’s cricket, sounded even more frustrated.

“I am immensely disappointed. We have been committed from the outset to deliver the same bio-secure standards for both men’s and women’s international cricket, an investment that included exclusive hotel use for teams, chartered flights and medical provisions. An ECB team, with support from the county ground in Derby, has created a dedicated behind-closed-doors environment to host all of our women’s internationals,” Connor said.

While the Ministry did not respond to a query for comment, they have been users of punitive measures against sporting federations that were not in their good books before. When CSA appeared before the sports portfolio committee recently, they were castigated by Minister Nathi Mthethwa for their “all-White management”.

President Chris Nenzani and acting CEO Jacques Faul have since resigned, but it would be no surprise if the ministry, often ill-informed on events on the inside of sporting organisations, have now also jumped on the anti-Smith bandwagon and are trying to make his life more difficult.

Cricket South Africa was plunged into monumental chaos on Monday as acting chief executive Jacques Faul resigned with immediate effect, hot on the heels of long-term president Chris Nenzani standing down.

The departure of Nenzani, who has been the longest-ever serving president, having been elected for the first time in 2013 and extending his term twice through constitutional amendments, was confirmed by CSA in a statement released on Monday morning.

But, according to CSA sources, Faul also tendered his immediate resignation on Monday. He had announced at the end of last month that he would step down from his role as acting CEO on September 15, his initial appointment from December 2019 to June having been extended on a month-to-month basis.

It is believed the CSA Board has stripped Faul of his powers, which is why he has decided to leave the embattled organisation immediately.

Faul was thrust into the role of acting CEO after Thabang Moroe was suspended nine months ago, triggering a forensic audit and a disciplinary process which to this day has still not been finalised, even though the Board have been sitting with the report for weeks.

Last December, CSA were facing deficits of close to a billion rand, fighting the players’ association in court, had alienated major sponsors and cancelled the accreditation of five journalists who had been critical of Moroe and the organisation. And the Proteas were seemingly in freefall just before the arrival of the England team.

Since then, Faul has ensured there have been no retrenchments through the Covid-19 pandemic and mended relationships with the players’ association, sponsors and media. The appointment of Graeme Smith as Director of Cricket and then Mark Boucher as Proteas head coach saw the team rally somewhat, beating a powerful Australian side 3-0 in an ODI series at the end of the summer.

It is believed company secretary Welsh Gwaza, a strong supporter of Moroe, will now be the acting CEO.

Gwaza is emerging as a powerful new figure within the organisation and he is also the current acting president until the CSA Members Council elect a temporary replacement for Nenzani, who stepped down just three weeks before the AGM to elect a new president on September 5.

CSA gave no reasons for Nenzani’s resignation, but an insider told The Citizen that they were told Nenzani had resigned “because of the cloud over CSA, too much is pointing back to the organisation and he wants to help clear the path for a new leader”.

Another insider pointed to the increasing influence of independent director and chairperson of the Transformation Committee, Dr Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, who “is now running the whole show”.

A new power struggle is emerging with long-time Nenzani and Moroe supporters Beresford Williams, the current vice-president, and controversial Eastern Province Cricket Union head Donovan May believed to be mounting campaigns to succeed Nenzani.

KwaZulu-Natal president Ben Dladla, who has helped rebuild a strong Dolphins franchise, is also rumoured to be in the running, although he has not been a member of the CSA Board. Northerns Cricket Union president Tebogo Siko, a Board member since last September, is also perhaps in contention.

But in the shadowy world of secret CSA meetings and internal politics, credible leadership has been in short supply.