Ken Borland

The conspirational – and successful – efforts of the Cricket South Africa Members Council to block the new Memorandum of Incorporation proposed by the Interim Board were on full display on Saturday when the Special General Meeting called to pass the amendments and end the impasse in the sport’s governance was made open to the media.

That the Members Council were not actually going to embrace change and elevate the administration of cricket into the modern era was clear from the very beginning. The scheming began with Eastern Province president Donovan May, whose time on the gravy train extends through all of the governance crises of the last decade, trying to stop the meeting before it even began by pointing out they could not proceed until all 14 provincial presidents had logged on to the virtual platform. Gibson Molale of Northern Cape is believed to have been the late arrival.

May interrupted again during the address of Interim Board chair Dr Stavros Nicolaou to point out that Sascoc president Barry Hendricks, who Nicolaou had invited as an observer, should not have been invited unless he was allowed to have a voice. Hendricks had apparently turned down the invitation because of this, but then suddenly joined the meeting 35 minutes after it had started.

Following sports minister Nathi Mthethwa’s address in which he urged the Members Council to “not let us down as a country” and “consider the implications of choosing the wrong way”, Tebogo Siko of Northerns then proposed that Hendricks be allowed to speak.

Nicolaou questioned whether it was good governance to change the agenda during the meeting, but the Members Council agreed to let Hendricks speak. The Sascoc president then firmly stated that CSA could not go ahead with the amendments without them being passed by Sascoc first, clearly going against the wishes of Mthethwa for the CSA issue to finally be resolved.

Although the Interim Board announced earlier that the Members Council had agreed to the new MoI, there had been whispers during the week that they were trying to get Sascoc involved because their constitution is at odds with having a majority of independent directors on the board.

Mthethwa responded by saying Sascoc had failed to deal with the matter in the first place and had asked him to intervene. “We cannot reverse now. We want to see this process go smoothly, with no opposition and no obstruction. May cricket be the winner,” the minister said before taking his leave.

And then it was put to the vote, when the blockers of change were really revealed, because they were the ones who actively opposed a public vote. May asked if there could be a secret ballot, Interim Board member Haroon Lorgat called for transparency and a show of hands. Anne Vilas was the only provincial president who spoke out for transparency, with John Mogodi (Limpopo), Daniel Govender (KZN), Molale and Simphiwe Ndzundzu (Border) being vocal in supporting May’s call for a secret ballot.

Members Council acting president Rihan Richards then said secret ballots are “standard practice and nothing new”, which sums up exactly why CSA have been in a mess for so long, before the motion for non-transparency was passed.

The proposed amendments were not passed, with only six of the 14 presidents being in favour of a majority independent board and five in favour of an independent chair. Astonishingly, given the gravity of the issue, there were three abstentions in the first vote and four for the second amendment. But that also sums up the calibre of leadership on CSA’s Members Council.

SA Rugby on Thursday submitted to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) that their remedies proposed in their draft findings into the broadcasting of sport by subscription television will lead to a severe reduction in the investment by these broadcasters in professional sport and will ultimately cost the Springboks the chance of adding to their 2019 World Cup victory.

Icasa have proposed that broadcast rights should not last longer than three years, that there should be no exclusive deals and that the rights should be split between multiple packages and broadcasters.

But in public hearings held virtually on Thursday, SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux said the ‘remedies’ would be an unreasonable burden on the federation and would mean they are likely to lose their fight for survival in these times of Covid uncertainty, while Senior Counsel Ngwako Maenetje said Icasa would be acting “irrationally” and ultra vires (beyond their powers) if they enforced the changes.

“If the regulations go through in their current format then we may never see a day like the 2019 World Cup win again. SA Rugby needs to produce compelling content that is commercially viable so we can develop the game from grassroots level to winning national teams. We are 99.7% self-funded, we only get 0.3% of our income from government, and broadcast rights bring in R752 million,” Roux explained on Thursday.

According to the SA Rugby presentation, broadcast rights make up 58% of their income, and sponsorships, which are largely dependent on TV exposure, make up another 26%.

“We are in a daily fight for survival, we are in financial difficulty having made losses between 2016 and 2018. We recovered a little profit in 2019 on the back of the World Cup and we looked forward to capitalising on that but no-one could have predicted what happened in 2020. Covid has pushed us into survival mode and had a massive detrimental effect. We’ve had to cut our budget by R1.2 billion.

“It has made insolvency a real and present danger, we’re on the brink, and if we had not been able to capitalise on broadcast rights, we would have been bankrupt by now. Exclusivity is the main source of our revenue and with less money it means there will be less rugby until we have to close our doors and only have club rugby. And then nobody will be interested in the game,” Roux said.

Judging by the presentation of Maenetje SC, Icasa would probably face court action if they enforce the regulations.

“No Regulatory Impact Assessment was conducted by Icasa, which makes the proposals irrational, they did not inform themselves of the adverse effect of these remedies. These effects are not proportional because they place such a burden on the rights holder, rather than broadcasters, such that they will not be able to sustain themselves. Icasa have paid scant regard to the dire impact we explained in our written submissions.

“By weakening one side of the equation you do not grow competitiveness in the market, SA Rugby will no longer be in a position to provide premium content and there will be an adverse impact on public interest. These remedies are irrational, not lawful and unconstitutional. They do not encourage investment so they undermine the Icasa mandate and exceed the statutory powers of Icasa,” Maenetje said.

Icasa launched their inquiry into subscription television services to ensure the broadcast market is sufficiently competitive, but Roux says “these remedies will have the completely opposite effect to their noble intentions”.

“The obligation is on the broadcasters and not on the rights-holders, which is where Icasa are acting ultra vires. There was no discussion of the economic impact in their draft findings,” Maenetje says.