Ken Borland

In the wake of Duanne Olivier becoming the latest South African cricketer to drop the Kolpak bombshell, it would be only human for Cricket South Africa chief executive Thabang Moroe to be feeling betrayed and to be considering his options when it comes to ensuring that his organisation and the staff involved with the national teams don’t have to go through that pain again, never mind the considerable resources expended – and now wasted – on grooming a player to make a successful entry into international cricket.

Olivier was probably the good news story of the summer, getting a prolonged run in the national team thanks to injuries to Lungi Ngidi and then Vernon Philander, and his immediate success prompted the Proteas brainstrust to take drastic steps to keep him in the side: World-class spinner Keshav Maharaj was sidelined and they even went into some games a batsman short, further weakening an already struggling batting line-up, just to ensure their new-found Enforcer could keep charging in and taking wickets.

The falling-over-backwards continued at board level as Olivier was offered a two-year contract, something highly unusual. The fact that everyone else only received a one-year contract when the new deals were announced on Friday shows just how obliging they were trying to be to the 26-year-old Free State fast bowler.

And then it turns out that all the time he was talking about his Proteas achievements being a dream come true and how proud he was, all the time he was negotiating with CSA for a two-year contract, he had already decided to sign a lucrative Kolpak deal with Yorkshire.

South African cricket has been through this betrayal before of course, with Kyle Abbott and Rilee Rossouw jumping ship midway through the previous home series against Sri Lanka in January 2017. Abbott had spent the previous weeks gushing about how delighted he was to be finally getting a prolonged run for the Proteas while Rossouw, after CSA had spent huge amounts of medical bills on him and persisted with through one of the worst duck-laden starts to an international career, merely dumped his employees with barely a word spoken.

This is not a Kolpak move like Morne Morkel’s, who, after more than 10 years of service to South African cricket, decided his body could no longer take the grind of the international game and nobody bemoaned him giving his pension a well-earned boost in England.

Olivier is in his prime, has played just 10 Tests and two ODIs, and Ottis Gibson and Faf du Plessis have very much been making plans for the future around having him in the fast bowling pool.

Olivier is, of course, represented and managed by an agent, Weber van Wyk. Who just happens to be the same agent who organised the Kolpak deals for Abbott and Rossouw, hence the same scarcely ethical modus operandi that clearly cannot be termed ‘negotiating in good faith’. Van Wyk has earned a fortune exporting South African talent to England.

If you were the CEO of a multimillion rand company that spends millions on developing their key assets, only to see them up-and-leave as soon as they get promoted to a level that makes them attractive to others, what would you do? If the same person was behind three of your prize assets leaving, would you reconsider having any dealings with that agent or his clientele ever again?

When Olivier was called up to replace Abbott for the third Test against Sri Lanka in 2017, he told CricInfo: “I want to play as long as possible for my country. When I am playing, I don’t think about stuff off the field. I haven’t considered a Kolpak deal.”

Who would have thought he would follow Abbott so closely and so quickly, swelling his pockets but surely to the detriment of his standing in the game.

Sadly, we have seen this lack of patriotism stretch to rugby circles in Bloemfontein as well. Apart from the despicable shenanigans of Johan Goosen in retiring from the game for a year just to get out of a recently-extended mega-millions contract in France, so he could sign an even bigger contract with a rival club, a school like Grey College is not even pretending to support South African rugby anymore, having signed an exclusive deal with Goosen’s Montpellier club to feed players into their – and therefore France’s – pipeline.

Money can buy many things, but it will never be able to buy respect.

It takes a special organisation to destroy a top-class brand like the Currie Cup – a 124-year-old South African sporting institution and one of the most famous competitions in the game – but the South African Rugby Union, the custodians of this treasured tournament, are pulling off this dubious feat with scarcely-believable efficiency.

A crowded schedule and the growth of SuperRugby, both in terms of size and importance, has put the squeeze on the Currie Cup in recent years, but in 2016 Saru have taken the self-sabotage to a whole new level.

The build-up to this year’s tournament can only be described as a fiasco – from a largely pointless qualification competition to the scheduling of the fixtures, the Eastern Province Kings saga and the decision that match-day squads will only feature 22 players, it has been a litany of mistakes by Saru.

Griquas, Boland and the Pumas all finished in the top five of the qualifying tournament and their involvement in the Premier Division is a fine idea. But the Kings are likely to be an absolute shambles given that they have been liquidated and almost all their SuperRugby players have left. Their second-string players could only win two of their 14 qualifying games.

The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, itself about to undergo a change of leadership, has temporarily bailed out Eastern Province with a R20 million support package, but that’s not going to fix their tight five or their defence.

Everyone knows that the Kings are going to be a disaster but a Saru vote, thanks to their archaic governance system, has kept them in the Premier Division. Instead of a path being chosen for the benefit of South African rugby as a whole, the decision was made by the general council of the 14 union presidents and it needed to be unanimous for the dysfunctional, bankrupt team to be booted.

Of course one could guarantee self-interest would win the day and the Griffons vetoed the scheme. Apparently they agreed the Kings shouldn’t be in the top division but they didn’t want the Leopards to replace them. Talk about childish petulance and abysmal leadership, and we have seen the same outcome in many other issues Saru have voted for over recent years.

No wonder so many sponsors run a mile when Saru come knocking on their doors, because who wants their brand to be associated with a bunch of dinosaurs who are busy presiding over the extinction of the once mighty and proud Currie Cup?

The scheduling has also been poor with the opening round of the main event taking place in the same radius as the SuperRugby final and one of the biggest stories in the local game for many years, the possibility of the Lions winning that trophy. So nobody really cares that the Currie Cup is starting.

The final is scheduled for October 15 and the Springboks only play their first end-of-year-tour match on November 5, so the Currie Cup could easily have started a week later, out of the shadow of SuperRugby.

The vexed question of the Kings’ participation has also led to a dizzying array of fixture changes, but even before that the Lions were scheduled to play this weekend, even though the attentions of the defending champions were clearly going to be on SuperRugby.

Saru are certainly not putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to the Currie Cup and the lack of resources for the competition is also shown by the decision that teams can only have 22-man match-day squads, instead of the 23 with a full front row on the bench that is used now in all other high-level rugby.

This will not only affect the quality of the competition – expect more uncontested scrums – but obviously affects the preparation of the Springboks because they will have to use 23 players at international level.

No wonder the Springboks have struggled in recent years when their support structures and their pipelines are like an IOU from Cheeky Watson blowing in a Port Elizabeth gale.

The management of Cricket South Africa were praised on Saturday for their effective running of the organisation through trying times as a profit of R199 million was announced at the annual general meeting at O.R. Tambo International Airport.

The audited financial statements showed revenue of R810 607 000 for the year ended April 30, 2014, with expenses of R634 092 000. With investment income of R17 324 000 and a net foreign exchange gain of R5 571 000, CSA were able to present a total profit of R199 410 000 for the financial year. This is only R18 million less than the targeted profit despite the calamitous curtailing of the lucrative Indian tour to South Africa late last year.

“Instead of the R200 million loss predicted by some in the media because of the India tour being curtailed, we are less than R20 million short of our target. If you consider the high level of dysfunctionality in governance and the inappropriate responses of the board back in 2010, then the management has been our saving grace. They have put a semblance of normality in place, they had to be creative and resilient and we have moved from crisis to normality,” CSA president Chris Nenzani said at the AGM.

Louis von Zeuner, an independent director, the chairman of the audit and risk sub-committee and a leading businessman, also praised CSA chief executive Haroon Lorgat and chief financial officer Naasei Appiah for their efforts.

“We really must applaud management for the way they have dealt with such curtailed income, stabilising cricket in this time of changing financial models. We have a balance on the board between business people and those with the cricket knowledge, so it’s the best of both worlds. If you look at the economy, the exchange rate, the impacts of changes in the international body and sponsors, it’s a totally different environment nowadays,” Von Zeuner said.

Appiah pointed out that cricket’s finances had to be planned over a four-year cycle and this four-year cycle just ended had seen CSA budget for R500 million a year of expenses, which would now increase to R650 million per year for the next four-year cycle.

Lorgat said this success was due to CSA implementing more efficient financial systems.

“We had to generate new revenues, such as the Festival of Cricket, but this did not affect our existing cricket activities. It was untrue when reports said we had to cut programs.

“What did happen was the re-engineering of our operating model, we had to understand exactly how everything worked, through a far more detailed process of measuring and managing, down to such details as ‘how many match balls does an affiliate need?’

“We’re confident that we can control the growth and sustenance of the game because we went into great detail to come up with the numbers. Funds are now allocated exactly according to activity, whereas in the past we used to just divide up the cake,” Lorgat said.

The CEO also said the Future Tours Programme for the next eight years would see a 44% increase in international cricket hosted by South Africa, with an average of 46 days of Proteas action per year, as compared to 32 in the previous FTP.

The money men were particularly looking forward to 2017/18 when four international teams, including India, are scheduled to tour South Africa, with 13 Tests set to be played.

“We’re fortunate to have the world’s best team, so we’re in a good space to be able to work out a profitable FTP, plus South Africa is an attractive destination,” Lorgat added.

http://www.supersport.com/cricket/domestic-cricket/news/140913/csa_management_praised_for_r199m_profit