Ken Borland

Chris Nenzani was elected as the new president and chairman of the board of directors on Saturday as Cricket South Africa deemed themselves to have emerged from the bonus scandal crisis.

“We have come from a very difficult period and if you had asked me a year ago if there was a crisis, I would have said ‘Yes’.

“But we have now gone beyond those trying times and we are looking forward to a very promising future. We will be checking our governance structure to ensure we regain public confidence and we must remember that the role of the administration is to remain in the background while the players are at the forefront,” schoolteacher Nenzani, the president of the Border Cricket Board, told media after his election at the Wanderers on Saturday.

The annual general meeting was closed to the media, but Nenzani’s only challenger for the post was believed to be Western Province’s Beresford Williams.

Williams is one of the seven non-independent directors elected on to the board, alongside Nenzani, vice-president Peter Cyster (Boland), Andy O’Connor (Easterns), Graeme Sauls (EP), Faeez Jaffar (KZN) and Rihan Richards (GW).

Five independent directors – controversial former CSA president Advocate Norman Arendse, Wesizwe Platinum’s Dawn Mokhobo, Constitutional Court trustee Vusi Pikoli, Absa’s Louis von Zeuner and Old Mutual chief operating officer Mohamed Iqbal Khan – will make up the remainder of the new board.

Non-independent directors will outnumber independents 7-5, but Nenzani said it was unfair for this to be classified as CSA backtracking on its agreements to implement the recommendations of the Nicholson Inquiry into their corporate governance after their former chief executive, Gerald Majola, was implicated in receiving improper bonus payments.

“I wouldn’t say we have backtracked. My understanding is that our restructuring is not just about the composition of the board. As members of Sascoc [the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee], we are committed to continuing our engagement with them. We have to get the right balance between independent directors and those with cricketing knowledge,” Nenzani said.

Acting president Willie Basson, in his outgoing address, said “the incoming board will be faced with a major challenge to comply with Sascoc’s requirement of increasing the non-independent directors on the board to nine representing the geopolitical regions.

“CSA has engaged with the Nicholson process in good faith but in the end found itself stranded between powerful forces and seriously conflicting objectives. Being left stranded between the high aspirations of the Memorandum of Agreement with the Minister [of Sport Fikile Mbalula] and Sascoc’s requirements was both uncomfortable and disappointing.”

Louis Luyt, the former president of the South African Rugby Football Union, parliamentarian and businessman, did not exactly have what could be described as an inclusive leadership style. But then again, he probably didn’t need to as he came from a section of society known as the “Super-Afrikaners”, had close ties with the ruling National Party and, allegedly, the Broederbond.

Although he was amongst the first to initiate talks with the then-banned ANC, Luyt angered the government and the majority of South Africans in 1998 when he crossed the line and forced President Nelson Mandela to testify as a witness when rugby faced a commission of inquiry into the sport’s slow pace of transformation.

A self-made man, Luyt made his fortune as a fertiliser salesman, then brought a brewery and, infamously,The Citizen as it became embroiled in the Infogate scandal that revealed the National Party were actually funding the newspaper with taxpayers’ money.

To say he did not suffer fools gladly would be an understatement: negotiations or meetings with Luyt were not for the fainthearted and the former Free State lock forward had little time for tact nor pleasantries. He preferred the Bull-In-A-China-Shop approach and bulldozed his way into getting what he wanted.

Where Luyt did provide great joy for the country was in bringing and heading the organisation of the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa, although he rather sullied all his good work after the final with a horribly ungracious speech after the Springboks’ triumph.

The All Blacks left the post-match function when Luyt boasted that the win proved South Africa would have won the previous two World Cups as well, and the referees and many other guests followed suit when he presented semi-final referee Derek Bevan with a gold watch after a tight encounter against France had been edged by the hosts. Ed Morrison, who took charge of the final, received nothing.

Luyt only lasted another three more years as Sarfu president, the outrage over his treatment of Mandela eventually leading to his ousting, after which he moved to the North Coast of KZN, where he died on Friday at the age of 80 after a series of heart problems.

Rugby in South Africa is led by a president of a totally different style these days in the urbane Oregan Hoskins, but he has been criticised for being toothless, with some calling for another Luyt to “sort out rugby”.

But South African rugby is now a multi-million rand business and cannot afford the sort of nepotism and favouritism Luyt showed … The news that he had retired in KZN did not go down well in the province because Sharks fans always felt they were screwed over by the long-time Transvaal Rugby Union strongman.

Hoskins is only constrained because of the structural weakness in South African rugby that sees 14 directors from all the provinces, some of them dinosaurs from the Luyt era, running the game, rather than an executive of professional experts.

Luyt used the system superbly, getting the smaller unions behind him as he made Transvaal the powerhouses, but his modus operandi could never work in this age of corporate PR and labour rights.

The way he fired Ian McIntosh as Springbok coach in 1994 without warning after he had drawn a Test in New Zealand was typical of the way Luyt operated.

Following his departure from rugby administration, Luyt became a member of parliament for the Federal Alliance party he began and, quite remarkably considering his legal tussle with Mandela, was elected on to the Judicial Services Commission.

Capable of infuriating but also getting things done, Luyt was undoubtedly one of the most colourful people in the history of South Africa’s transition to democracy.

Such giant personalities are few and far between, but the disappointment was that Luyt chose to feed his own ego and was not, in the end, the nation-builder and rugby messiah he could have been.

Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, who tweeted that Luyt had “caused some of us to turn backs on sport we love” is not the only one who will lament the negative influence Luyt became.

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-02-01-farewell-louis-luyt/#.UYq7nqJTA6w

Lions coach John Mitchell has been suspended with immediate effect due to the complaints of the players, SuperRugby franchise president Kevin de Klerk said on Saturday.

Mitchell, the former coach of the All Blacks and Perth-based SuperRugby team the Western Force, will now face a disciplinary inquiry by the board of the Johannesburg-based franchise.

“John Mitchell has been suspended pending an investigation, after complaints from the players,” De Klerk confirmed to Reuters on Saturday.

“The complaints of the players are quite serious and it’s not just from one or two players, it’s a very substantial number which we cannot take lightly. As the custodians of Gauteng rugby, we are responsible to our staff and the well-being of our players.”

While De Klerk, a former Springbok lock, said he could not elaborate on the complaints due to the sub-judice nature of the investigation, they are believed to revolve around Mitchell’s management style.

The New Zealander has had a simmering relationship with media and sponsors, and local newspapers have reported anonymous players alleging verbal abuse by Mitchell. The 48-year-old has also publicly criticised individual players.

Mitchell joined the Lions in mid-2010 and steered them to the Currie Cup title last year, but their SuperRugby form has been poor with the Lions being South Africa’s worst-performing franchise over the last two years and set to be replaced by the Southern Kings next year.

Assistant coaches Carlos Spencer and Johan Ackermann will now take over the coaching reins as the Lions return to SuperRugby action next weekend.