CSA’s horror hattrick: delinquent administration, derelict board, deadly virus

“There’s no historic data or literature. This is almost like a world war.” – Jacques Faul

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

NOT long ago Cricket South Africa (CSA) were staring into a hole more than USD50-million deep. That was how much they were estimated to lose by the end of the 2022 rights cycle. So much for the good news: the coronavirus pandemic has blown the bottom out of the hole. Now, CSA don’t know how much more impoverished the game will be. 

“We’ve established a scenario planning committee that will look into it,” acting chief executive Jacques Faul told an online press conference on Friday. “There’s certain things that we can do immediately, but there is a low level of predictability.”

The cricket season has ended in South Africa, but unlike in other years the game won’t be able to pick up where it left off when next summer arrives.

“We know we’re not an island, so our world will be affected by the world economy and the South African economy,” Faul said. “Our funding model is based very much on incoming tours, so the moment that gets affected we get affected. But also our ability to service certain of our sponsors’ agreements will be influenced. We hope to have more strategy in the next two weeks. There’s no historic data or literature. This is almost like a world war.”

A previous delinquent administration overseen by a derelict board cost CSA millions in lost sponsorship and failed broadcast deals and exponentially more in squandered credibility. The relationship between CSA and their only assets, the players, crashed to an unfathomed low that was headed for the courts. One of their major affiliates, the Western Province Cricket Association, who host the showpiece event of the summer, the New Year Test, also unleashed their lawyers on CSA — and won.

Matters seemed to take a turn for the better in December when Thabang Moroe was suspended as chief executive. Faul’s interim appointment was followed in short order by that of Graeme Smith as acting director of cricket, Mark Boucher’s as the national men’s team’s coach, and the return of Linda Zondi as a selector. Only for South Africa to suffer their worst home campaign since readmission in 1991: they won only one of their five series and lost three. But that could be ascribed to the damage already done. Better days were surely ahead, even though most of that damn board clings to office and the shadow cast by the suspensions of several senior staff members — most of them unresolved, Moroe’s included — lingers still.

And then came coronavirus, changing the world as we know it in as yet unknowable ways.

CSA won’t feel the financial pinch immediately. So paycheques are safe. For now. “Broadcast rights have already been sold, so we don’t have to cut [salaries] at this stage,” Faul said. “It’s not to say it won’t happen in future, but we haven’t lost income at this stage that would trigger such a cut. We would first have to lose substantial money before that happens. For example, If we lose home Indian income, that might trigger a cut. But that hasn’t happened.

“If your future content doesn’t take place, then your money gets cut. But we can’t take a decision to cut salaries if we haven’t experienced an actual loss yet. That wouldn’t be a responsible thing to do at this stage.” But Faul warned that “the effect of the virus has been delayed at CSA, but it will come”.

A planned downsizing of the domestic game from the 2021-22 season will further shrink the amount of employment available in cricket, and CSA’s current contract with broadcaster SuperSport — whose revenues will also be ravaged by the havoc wrought by the virus — expires next year.

CSA’s next potentially profitable incoming tours, as currently scheduled, are Australia’s visit to play three Tests in February 2021, followed the next month by England for three ODIs and as many T20Is. That December, the only guaranteed money-makers, India, will be in town until January 2022 for three Tests and three T20Is. But first CSA will have to absorb loss-making ventures to their shores by Pakistan in October and Sri Lanka in January next year.

And spend money going to white-ball series in Sri Lanka in June and Test and T20I engagements in the Caribbean in July and August. Mercifully, in the financial sense, both are under threat because of the virus crisis. Even the T20 World Cup in Australia in October and November has been cast into doubt, which could be dispelled at an International Cricket Council teleconference on Thursday involving the national boards’ chief executives.

“A factor that will influence [the viability of the T20 World Cup] big time is, of course, international travel — when will that be open?” Faul said. “I guess you can play it behind closed doors. But you’ve still got to get visas and travel. There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

The only glimmer of positivity on Friday was confirmation that Smith, originally appointed for three months, had agreed a contract of two years. He was, for some, a controversial choice as director of cricket, an echo of being named South Africa’s captain at 22. But when so much is unsettled it is no small thing that this, at least, has been nailed down.

Smith brought the promise of good tidings: “We’re really hoping to close [a deal] potentially [to play] T20s [in South Africa] at the end of August with India. There’s a lot of doubt about what going to happen going forward, but we are in consistent discussions with the leaders of the BCCI.”

That would put money in CSA’s coffers. But India, as world cricket’s paymasters, won’t want for suitors banging at their door for a way to cushion the damage of the global disaster. Smith is a giant on the subcontinent, as he is everywhere cricket is played. But is he big enough to help CSA make India an offer they can’t refuse?

First published by Cricbuzz.