WPCA – Bulletproof Truth

Newlands pitch the tip of WP’s iceberg of problems

“It wasn’t great; both the cricket and the wicket.” – Shukri Conrad

Telford Vice / Newlands

TO gain a better understanding of what happened at Newlands on Wednesday and Thursday you need to look below the surface. Not at it. That said, much of the focus on the shortest of all the 2,522 men’s Tests yet played will indeed centre on the pitch — a 22-yard long lottery ticket offering no certainty except the impossibility of judging how high, or not, the next delivery would climb after bouncing.

The match was over five minutes short of an hour after lunch on the second day. So, in not quite four-and-a-half sessions. Or in seven overs longer than it would take an ODI to go the full distance. The game was put out of its misery in 642 deliveries, beating by 14 balls the MCG match between Australia and South Africa in February 1932 as the shortest Test. South Africa lost then, too. But by an innings. Not that they would consider their seven-wicket loss to India any less a hiding. If anything, this was even more of a thrashing. And of more than simply a cricket team.

Newlands, you might have noticed, is the darling ground of the game in this country. Visitors approach it from all parts of the game’s world with the kind of veneration others reserve for their first sight of the Taj Mahal. The mountain! The Oaks! The atmosphere! The lush greenery! The sunshine that seeps on into the evening hours! The sight, smell, sound, taste and feel of the African summer at its most voluptuous! The fairest pitch in all the land! Not.

“I don’t know what people want me to say — whether it was a rubbish wicket or not,” Shukri Conrad said. “But you only need to look at the scores, a one-and-a-half day Test match, and the way they chased a little target of 79.”

South Africa won the toss and were bowled out for 55, the lowest total recorded against India in their 574 Tests and the home side’s lowest in the 390 matches they have played since that game in Melbourne almost 92 years ago. In their reply of 153, India became the first Test team to lose their last six wickets for no runs. Fuelled by Aiden Markram’s 106, South Africa’s second innings — in which no-one else made more than a dozen runs — reached 176. Mohammed Siraj took 6/15 in the first innings and Jasprit Bumrah claimed 6/61 in the second.

“It’s a sad state when you need more luck than skill to survive in a Test match,” Conrad said. “All the ethics and values of Test cricket go out the window. This was just a slugfest, a slogathon. That’s taking nothing away from India; they were superb. But you ain’t going to win too many Test matches scoring 50-odd. You’ve got to own it, and we own it. It wasn’t great; both the cricket and the wicket.

“Often the surfaces you play on make you doubt your technique and how you approach the game. That’s where I felt the game was from the first couple of overs of the match. I was chatting to Rahul Dravid this morning, and … we want to get away from the phrase that there’s a ball with your name on it. But, on this pitch, we felt there was. That makes you play in a certain way, and that’s why we batted the way we did.

“I had so much pleasure in announcing Stubbo [Tristan Stubbs] was debuting, and then I apologised to him after the game for giving him a debut on a pitch like this. It’s not going to get any more difficult than this. When you go to the subcontinent, where it spins, you know what you’re in for. So you prepare accordingly. That’s all us as coaches and players want. This was nowhere near that.

“This has come as a shock to the system, but I’m not going to lay the blame entirely on the doorstep of our playing XI, or the make-up of our team or our tactics. It’s been a combination of a red-hot India who were desperate to come back [after losing the first Test by an innings in Centurion], and the conditions.

“We lose a lot of batsmanship because of T20 cricket. Batters like to feel bat on ball nowadays. I was chatting to Rahul Dravid this morning, and … we want to get away from the phrase that there’s a ball with your name on it. But, on this pitch, we felt there was. That makes you play in a certain way, and that’s why we batted the way we did.”

The pitch was the first Test surface prepared by curator Braam Mong. Some will say it should be last. Was Conrad among them? “I know Braam. He’s a good guy. Sometimes good guys do bad things. Or get things wrong. This doesn’t turn Braam into a rubbish groundsman, just like 55 all out doesn’t turn us into a rubbish cricket team — a few days ago we thrashed them.

“I’m sure there will be a lot of learnings for Braam. I’ll go across there at some stage and wish him well going forward, and see what his thoughts are. It’s easy to rubbish certain things, but you’ve got to feel for groundsmen. Just like cricketers and coaches, who have to take it on the chin, my message to Braam would be to take it on the chin and move forward.”

Might the message for Conrad be that he needs to take a greater say in the preparation of the surfaces South Africa play on at home? “I don’t want to be doctoring pitches. We’ve got young batters who need to learn their trade and find their way in international cricket. Playing on pitches like this doesn’t do that for them. I never have and never will prescribe to groundsmen, because they’ve also got jobs to do.”

Mong was a visible, hands-on presence throughout the match, and was hard at work for hours after Thursday’s early finish preparing the pitch for Newlands’ first game in the second edition of the SA20 on January 16. But, unlike most people in his profession, especially at iconic venues, he isn’t permanently attached to the ground. He owns a turf management company that has clients throughout Cape Town. Tending to Newlands is among his many duties.

This is not to cast aspersions on Mong or his ability. Instead, it tells us something about Newlands and the Western Province Cricket Association (WPCA) that is supposed to run the ground in a manner befitting its status, real and imagined. Look around the place, especially where the television cameras don’t shine, and you will see peeling paint, weeds the size of small trees growing in cracks in the concrete, and waste bins fallen from their wall mounts. Food and drink options for spectators are limited, as are the chances of finding a clean seat to sit on. Seen through a screen, Newlands radiates beauty. Up close and in parts, it is shabby.

That’s hardly surprising given the factionalism that has fractured the WPCA along racial, religious and cultural lines. Couple that with the kind of exceptionalism that led West Indies cricket to believe the good times of the 1980s and 90s would never end, and it’s not difficult to see why the WPCA is failing as the custodian of the game in the province.

The board is being kept afloat by a bailout from CSA that will amount to more than a million dollars, which won’t go far in taking the edge off the monthly bill of USD134,000 the WPCA pay to service the debt created by major redevelopments at Newlands. The WPCA’s chief executive, Michael Canterbury, has been booked off since September with an undisclosed illness. In his place, as a consiglieri of sorts, CSA have parachuted in Corrie van Zyl, whose skill and integrity as an administrator was confirmed in October 2019 when he was suspended. The CSA of those awful days, when Van Zyl was acting director of cricket, was presided over by Chris Nenzani and run by Thabang Moroe; bad apples both. The deservedly respected Van Zyl arrived at Newlands a few short weeks ago with a brief to make sure the Test and the SA20 matches went off as smoothly as possible.

Nothing was smooth about the Test pitch. Was it the manifestation of Newlands’ and the WPCA’s many problems; a symptom of the systemic sepsis? Conrad, who was born in über-local Lansdowne and is as Cape Town as Capetonians get, who guided teams from here to senior national titles across the formats when he coached them from 2005/06 to 2009/10, a man of cricket from top to toe, is the perfect person of whom to ask that question.

“I think I’m best placed to talk about the cricket surface, but I’m certainly not best placed to chat about whatever else is going on here,” Conrad said. “I worked here many years ago, and I moved on. I’m not in a position to discuss the goings on between the walls here.”

Shukri Conrad does not often shoulder-arms to questions. He will have to forgive us for thinking the real answer to that one lurks below the surface.

Cricbuzz

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Wickets, words and wondering: André Odendaal’s three Ws

“To explain racism in sport you’ve got to go back to colonialism; the first British warships arriving, and cricket bats and bayonets coming off together.” – André Odendaal

Telford Vice | Cape Town

IF André Odendaal says he isn’t writing a book, collaborating on a book, or about to have a book published, call a doctor.

Since December alone he’s put out “Pitch Battles: Sport, Racism and Resistance” with Peter Hain and “Robin Island Rainbow Dreams: The Making of Democratic South Africa’s First National Heritage Institution” with Neo Lekgotla laga Ramoupi, Noel Solani and Khwezi ka Mpumlwana.

Stand by, in April, for “Dear Comrade President: How Oliver Tambo Laid the Foundations of South Africa’s Constitution” with Albie Sachs. It will be the 13th book he has written or co-written.

When last hasn’t Odendaal been busy with a book? “That’s a good question … I started at university, which means I’ve published every decade for the last five,” he tells the FM. “That makes me a hell of an old toppie!”

Queenstown born and raised Odendaal is 67. A writer in residence and honorary professor in history and heritage studies at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), his Wikipedia page lists his 61 on debut — his only first-class half-century — for Cambridge immediately below the fact that he earned a PhD in history in the famously spired city. It seems rude to ask which he prizes more highly.

After Cambridge he was at UWC for 13 years, establishing and leading the Mayibuye Centre for History and Culture in 1991, and in 1996 becoming the founding director of the Robben Island Museum. In 2015 he retired after 10 years as chief executive of the Western Province Cricket Association. He has since published or co-published 20 books in his African Lives Series.

“When I left Newlands I said to my wife [civic activist Zohra Ebrahim], ‘I’ve been running organisations for 20 years. I’d love to just go read, write and do research for a couple of years. Call it a second PhD.’ So I’ve been writing fulltime for the last six years. In the last 12 months I’ve signed off on three books. But they came from six years of process and engagement.”

All of Odendaal’s works deal with sport, politics or, more often, both. He runs towards that nexus. The second chapter of “Pitch Battles” — which ends with an examination of what the pandemic and Black Lives Matter mean for sport — is titled: “Empire and the British roots of sports apartheid”.

“I said to Peter that we must explain how racism became embedded in South African sport. To do that you’ve got to go back to colonialism; the first British warships arriving, and cricket bats and bayonets coming off together.”

The Robben Island book was informed by what he encountered there: “I went through a very profound experience taking it from a prison to a museum, and a privilege in terms of my own identity — who I am and how I think. On top of that, we were a pilot case for state capture. The same tactics and, in some cases, even the same people were involved.” Chapter 13, “Downward spiral of an institution and its vision”, begins: “Farce became reality on Robben Island after the banal campaign to replace the management in 2001 and 2002 and the travesty of a staged ‘hunger strike’ in the hallowed former prison, which made a mockery of the ‘triumph of the human spirit’ vision of the museum.”

More happily, Odendaal says: “I spent six New Year’s Eves on the island looking at fire crackers going off at different times of the night in Cape Town. Twelve o’clock wan’t the same everywhere in the city.”

A chance meeting with Sachs at the memorial service for activist Sadie Forman in 2014 led to bigger things: “He said come and join our project on the making of the constitution.” And so to the Tambo book, which deals with the important but under-explored events of 1985 to 1991: “It’s about how the ANC turned to constitutionalism in the middle of a revolutionary struggle. Everybody starts this story with De Klerk unbanning the ANC in 1990. But, strategically, the ANC were miles ahead of the apartheid government by then. When they started negotiating they had their principles in place. The state was going left, right and centre; it had no plan.”

Odendaal has been whirling through words for more than an hour. Told that the coffee sat in front of him must be cold, he reaches for the crestfallen flat white anyway.

“Ag,” he says in his untouched Eastern Cape accent, “I drink cold coffee.”

Straight, no chaser.

First published by the Financial Mail.

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Fundudzi report lays bare CSA’s dysfunction

Between them, Thabang Moroe and Naasei Appiah accounted for 83% of CSA’s spending on alcohol.

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

CSA’s interim board earned its first major victory over the organisation’s culture of secrecy and control on Wednesday when all 457 pages of the Fundudzi forensic report were made public. The document was used to fire Thabang Moroe as chief executive, and could lead to disciplinary action being taken against others.

The members council, nominally CSA’s highest authority, had previously tightly restricted access to the report. It at first balked at allowing parliament to see it and demanded non-disclosure agreements from the few who did, citing fears of legal action.

“The board is alive to the fact that some individuals and organisations have concerns that they have been mentioned or implicated in the report, that some individuals have not being heard and that the report does not necessarily paint a full picture,” a release on Wednesday said. “The board has nevertheless concluded that it is overwhelmingly in the public interest and in the interest of CSA to release the report at this time.

“All stakeholders will be given a fair opportunity to convey their views. In addition, no action will be taken against any person implicated without a full investigation, fair procedures, and in particular everyone being given the opportunity to be heard.”

A 46-page summary of the report, prepared by CSA’s own lawyers, was released on October 5. It mentioned Moroe 71 times. The full version features him 681 times. In many of those instances, not in a good way.

The view of the process that led to his appointment on July 16, 2018 — after CSA had received applications from 35 candidates, of which it shortlisted eight and interviewed four — is withering: “When compared to other shortlisted candidates, Moroe lacked the minimum tertiary qualification. Moroe did not have a minimum of eight years executive management experience in business, cricket or commercial entity [as required for the position]. CSA’s board was aware or ought to have been aware that Moroe did not meet the minimum qualification for the position of CSA chief executive.”

Many calamities later, Moroe was suspended on December 6, 2019. “In his letter of suspension, CSA chairman and president of the members council, Chris Nenzani, indicated that the charges largely related to the revocation of media accreditation as well as lack of oversight and related matters,” the report says. That followed severe deterioration in CSA’s relationships with the players and the sponsors, and the projection that it could lose up to USD65.5-million by the end of the 2022 rights cycle. Five journalists who reported critically and consistently on cricket’s sorry state of affairs — including me, in the interests of full disclosure — had their accreditation revoked “on Moroe’s instruction” on November 25 last year. The resultant outcry from the public, sponsors and the South African National Editors’ Forum prompted Moroe’s suspension. He was fired on August 27 this year.

Welsh Gwaza, CSA’s company secretary and the most powerful person in cricket — perhaps excluding the interim board — features in the summary report a scant four times. He doesn’t get off that likely in the unabridged edition, which names him in 254 places. His fingerprints are all over CSA’s disastrous decision to put the Western Province Cricket Association under administration in February last year — which was overturned in court, with costs — and, according to the report, he spends a lot of time and effort thinking up ways to set lawyers on journalists. Oddly, then, he “does not recall a specific discussion around the revocation of media accreditation”.

There’s more, so much more. Including that “CSA has been issuing credit cards to staff for years without there being a policy that provides guidance on the use of the credit card”. CSA cards were used to “pay for alcohol during business functions” in 27 transactions from August 19, 2016 to August 24, 2019. The equivalent of USD20,856 was spent, USD6,081 of it by Moroe on six different occasions. But the champion booze buyer was Naasei Appiah, who was fired as chief operating officer on August 16. He signed 13 times for a total of USD11,226, including the biggest single amount: USD3,080 at a champagne bar in Cape Town on November 26, 2018. Between them, Moroe and Appiah accounted for 83% of CSA’s alcohol expenditure during the four years under review.

We will have to stop there, not least to give the report the attention it deserves. But the lid is off, the lights are finally on, the toothpaste is out of the tube. Watch this space.

First published by Cricbuzz.

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Exit sign looms: ‘Grandpa, what was a stadium and why did we have them?’

“For four-day cricket all you need is a damn good field. You could argue the same thing for one-day cricket. So you only need the stadium for the spectacle of T20, because that’s going to draw people.” – Nabeal Dien, former WPCA chief executive

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

“IT’S going to be over there,” a friend said with a downward sweep of his arm as we stood on the balcony of his apartment in Greenpoint, a district of Cape Town that creeps uphill towards Table Mountain. The caramel light of a summer evening softened into a promise the rough void that lay between us and the Atlantic a few kilometres away. It was late 2007.

By the winter of 2010 the promise had been fulfilled. The ground “over there” and many of the metres above it had been transformed into a wonder of sharp and sweeping lines. A mammoth tribute to the tribal hat worn by Ndebele women? A mighty ocean liner nudging towards the nearby Atlantic? A surreal amalgam of the two? What the structure’s form suggested didn’t matter. What did matter was that it existed, a triumph over the First World’s doubts and against South Africans’ better judgement of how best to spend USD600-million. Cape Town Stadium, built for football’s 2010 World Cup, was magnificent.

More than half-a-million people attended the eight matches played there during the tournament. Of those 64,100 watched Germany thrash Argentina 4-0 in the quarter-finals. 62,479 saw the Netherlands beat Uruguay 3-2 in the semi-finals. The biggest attendance to date is 72,532 for a U2 concert in 2011. In February this year Roger Federer played Rafael Nadal to a chorus of oohs and aahs of 51,954 — a world record for a tennis match.

Will we ever see the like of those crowds again now that the coronavirus pandemic has changed everything, including how we watch sport? Might the age of the stadium, which as far as we can tell started at Olympia in Greece in 776 BCE, be over? And in particular stadiums built for cricket, which tend to be unsuited to the staging of other events because the hallowed pitchblock shall not be sullied by philistines like footballers? Except in Australia and New Zealand, where pitches are dropped in once the philistines have been repelled, cricket grounds are sitting ducks to be squashed by the relentless march of change. If the pandemic doesn’t get them, progress will.

“We don’t know when crowds can come back,” Nabeal Dien, until the end of April the chief executive of the Western Province Cricket Association (WPCA), the apex of a career of 22 years in administration he is continuing as a consultant, told Cricbuzz. “It’s encouraging to see that they have in some places. But we just don’t know. So we’re going to have to look at the costs associated with how we play cricket.

“For four-day cricket all you need is a damn good field — a good pitch and a good outfield. You could start targetting very good club grounds for that. You could argue the same thing even for one-day cricket. So you only need the stadium for the spectacle of T20, because that’s going to draw people.”

That kind of writing was on cricket stadiums’ walls long before Covid-19 rewrote the rules of how we live. Newlands, where Dien was based, hosted matches on only 48 days in 2019. The purpose it was built for occupied it for 13.15% of the entire year, and it was far from full on most of those 48 days. The economics don’t add up. They haven’t since cricket burst its banks as a quaint pursuit that existed largely within its physical boundaries and in the hearts and minds of those who played and served it — not unlike a bigger, internationalised version of croquet — and became an industry run by people who know how to run companies but wouldn’t necessarily know a cover drive from a set of covers.

When the only way to watch the game was to be there, cricket stadiums were cathedrals. When television changed that narrative, they became altars from which the gospel spread widely. Now that the cricket industry has, in the past few months, established that spectators are surplus to requirements, and that their avatars can be engineered electronically and smuggled seamlessly into the broadcast product as a sop to viewers, cricket stadiums are in danger of becoming relics rarely seen by the game itself. And the rot won’t stop there.

“My belief is that cricket is going to have to be re-structured, especially in terms of personnel,” Dien said. “You can no longer have 50 or 60 people working for you as a franchise. I’ve told our guys it’s something they’re going to have to do soon. It can’t wait. Covid has definitely accelerated it, but considering where CSA [Cricket South Africa] find themselves it was very clear that budgets were going to get cut.”

Whether the game as we know it will survive the threats posed by the fallout from the coronavirus and CSA’s chronic crises on almost every front — finance, governance, management, common sense — is not at all assured. CSA’s self-harm has been part of the game’s reality for years, and is exacerbated by the fact that the franchises, and therefore the provinces, would struggle to stay afloat financially without CSA’s help. But the WPCA have been able to plan for a better future, not least because they have been among CSA’s better run affiliates and because the Western Cape has South Africa’s second-biggest provincial GDP.

Since February last year a decent chunk of Newlands has been a construction site. Developments worth R750-million, or USD44,7-million at current exchange rates, will equip the stadium with a bevy of high-quality facilities that won’t have much to do with the playing of cricket. “Nobody must lose sight of the fact that the work on this project started in 2009,” Dien said. “And the purpose was to ensure sustainability. The real returns will only come after six years, but 20 years down the line we’re not going to need money from anybody. We’re going to have a multi-purpose hall, a museum — not in the traditional sense but a place that cricket lovers will be able to hire out for conferences; it will showcase the history but it’s not going to be a dead space — and we’re going to have a 280-seater, highly equipped auditorium.”

By July next year 20,000 square metres of what an August 4 release described as “new commercial space” are expected to be available for rent and hire. “Roughly 50% … has been designed for office usage, with the balance being educational”, the release said. A private college “have signed a long-term lease” and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology will establish “an exciting new sports management campus complete with a sports science laboratory”. Restaurants, cafés, an open-air piazza, 800 parking bays and a pedestrian bridge over the railway line that hugs the western boundary are part of the blueprint. CSA’s 2018-19 annual report, the latest available, says Newlands “will be debt-free by 2040”, and that “with an asset value of about R2-billion [USD120-million]” it “has the potential to generate net revenue of about R140-million [USD8.4-million]”. To realise the dream a newly formed company, Western Province Property Holdings Pty Ltd, went into partnership with Sanlam, a financial services company who put up 51% of the capital.

“Our scoreboard is a big LED TV, in essence. For certain parts of the year we can drive 500 cars onto the field and create a drive-in.” – Jono Leaf-Wright, Central Gauteng Lions chief executive

In reaction, CSA put the WPCA under administration. Only for an arbitration court to rule in the province’s favour. Nic Kock, then WPCA president, was hailed as a brave visionary by CSA’s legion of critics. But that August 4 release announced his resignation. “Together with some of the [seven other WPCA] board members that have recently resigned we believe that signing of the proposed lease agreements to the value of R12-million [USD719,000] annually in the current economic climate could be perceived as reckless trading,” Kock was quoted as saying at the time.

What had changed between the WPCA believing in their cause enough to unleash their lawyers and Kock, himself an advocate, withdrawing his support for the same cause not quite a year later? In a word, Covid-19. Considering the construction delays caused by lockdown, how would the WPCA earn the R12-million they would owe in rent each year by signing those leases? But Dien remained conditionally optimistic: “We have to deal with and get through this challenge. I’m not even talking about Covid — it’s about getting our project done. Our main partner, Sanlam, is entirely happy where we are, and that should be our guide. [It would be concerning] if they become unhappy, and I think Nic going almost created that situation.”

But it didn’t, and building work at Newlands is creaking along at around a third of the pace it did before lockdown. Still, many doubt the scheme will be completed. It is easily the grandest undertaking by a cricket organisation in the country, and the impact of the pandemic on sport and the wider economy makes that exponentially more true. The risk of half-built husks serving as haunting reminders of what could yet turn out to be folly is significant. That also means the rewards could be spectacular should the WPCA pull it off.

Newlands isn’t the only South African stadium nurturing big dreams. In Johannesburg, a city that packs more brash entrepreneurial oomph than relatively genteel Cape Town, the Wanderers fancies itself as a venue of choice for a range of what are called “non-cricket related events” by Jono Leaf-Wright. He was 37 when he reported for duty as chief executive of the Central Gauteng Lions chief executive in October, and older, grumpier cricket types might complain that his perspective reeks of youth: “A few weeks in I launched something called ‘Project Wonder’ — how we could wonder what this place could look like if we thought out of the box and were innovative in the space. I knew how little the Wanderers was used for sporting events. We need to have recurring income in the non-cricket related eventing space if we’re really going to start to sweat this asset and make some proper money, which we then can plough back into development cricket and into growing cricket in our province.”

Running the Wanderers costs up to R1.1-million a month. The salary bill, excluding the Lions franchise players, is around R1.8-million. That’s the equivalent of more than USD174,000 that must be paid every month, regardless of the season. Priorities must change accordingly.

“We would need to create some drop-in pitches, so you could play rugby, cricket and soccer on different weekends,” Leaf-Wright said. “The length of the grass is an issue. You need 16-millimetre grass for PSL [Premier Soccer League] games, whereas we cut down to eight millimetres [for cricket]. But we have embarked on those discussions and the PSL does remain keen to stay connected. We’ve engaged with some concert companies and with Showjumping South Africa to bring World Cup showjumping here, and we’ve had great excitement from stadium golf.

“We’re looking to use the media centre as a co-working space. So, for the 300-odd days a year when it’s empty we’ll lease space out to people, creating business incubator hubs where they can come and sit in the media centre, connect to our wifi, and there’s coffee and all that, work, pay a fee, and go. That process has begun. We’ll also be converting [hospitality] suites into tenant space. A couple of hotel groups are proposing various different things. Restaurant groups want to put permanent restaurants here.

“We want to give the community and everyone driving past the Wanderers on Corlett Drive the sense that the lights are always on, that the Wanderers is not something that you go to only when you watch a cricket match. You can go for a meeting, you can book a boardroom, you can have a coffee, you can have a drink. We want to create some very cool, exclusive sky bar events like gin and whisky festivals. We’ve engaged with a couple of companies to bring a drive-in here. Our scoreboard is a big LED TV, in essence. For certain parts of the year we can drive 500 cars onto the field and create a drive-in [cinema].”

That future is already with us. The Wanderers was used as a venue for warm-up matches before the 2010 football World Cup, and Abiy Ahmed became the first Ethiopian prime minister to address the country’s significant South African diaspora at the Wanderers in January, when 15,000 of his compatriots were in attendance. A crowd of the same size were there in July 2018 to hear Barack Obama deliver the 16th Mandela Lecture. We can only wonder what wisdom Nelson Mandela, who died in December 2013, might have handed down to help us navigate these coronavirus days.

“We had geared ourselves to have a lot of really cool non-cricket related events, and unfortunately Covid wiped those out,” Leaf-Wright said. “We’ve got some planned for the end of September, when hopefully we’ll start to switch the space on again. We do have some anchor tenants in the stadium — the Wanderers Medical Centre, the Cricket Company Sports Shop. So we have managed to keep our head above water. But certainly Covid has created some serious challenges. We were really geared to become a non-cricket related destination; our eventing was up by 30%. It was heading in the right direction.”

When might spectators head back through the turnstiles, given that they are not allowed under South Africa’s current lockdown regulations? “I am confident we will have fans in some form by the end of this year,” Leaf-Wright said. “Sport can’t survive without fans, and the South African fan — while the consumer is changing and while the consumer would have changed out of this Covid experience — likes live sport. They like the atmosphere and being part of a purpose and a match; going with some buddies and doing something cool. And that’s why I don’t think we’ll ever lose that fan, even post-Covid.”

That said, not many of South Africa’s cricket fans have yet had to come face-to-face with the effects of the new normal. The men’s national team played their last scheduled home match of the summer, an ODI against Australia in Potchefstroom, three weeks before lockdown was imposed at the stroke of midnight on March 26. The women’s side suffered the cancellation of three home games in each white-ball format against the Aussies in March and April, but crowds at their matches are small and their television viewership is a fraction of the numbers drawn by their male counterparts. Likewise the interest in the franchise One-Day Cup, which had its semi-finals and final called off, and even more so the premier first-class competition, whose last two rounds went unplayed, is comparatively minor.

But spring has sprung and summer beckons, and with that come expectations of the sights, sounds and smells of cricket. Will cricket meet them, or something else? Imagine turning up at the Wanderers to catch the second innings of a day/nighter you thought was being played and, instead of hearing bat on ball, the din of 500 cars growling into their places in time for the start of that night’s movie is all around. Or arriving at Newlands on a Friday and being confronted by a horde of freshly freed fleeing on their way to the weekend. Once, these were cricket stadiums in the singular sense of the word. Soon, they might be multi-purpose venues where cricket accepts the status of the occasional tenant it always has been.

If that seems bleak, the sounds that have emanated from Cape Town Stadium these past few weeks suggest a darker prospect. The harshness of metal on metal groans to a discordant rhythm that throws into incongruity the grace of the structure and the golf course and park that surround it. Maybe that’s what maintenance or refurbishment sounds like. Or the place is being hollowed out, its inner organs harvested for repurpose in preparation for the day when the idea of the stadium as we know it is declared dead on its foundations. And demolished.

Outlandish? Dystopian? Unnecessarily negative? Stranger things could happen, soon, at all the stadiums near and far from you. And that’s the better case scenario. Over there has never been closer to being made null and void.

First published by Cricbuzz.

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Virus could save cricket from CSA

“Let’s look each other in the eye before we make a decision on this.” – Nic Kock convinces CSA’s members council to defer talk of constitutional change.

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

THE coronavirus pandemic isn’t doing the world much good, but it may earn the credit for saving cricket in South Africa from the worst excesses of some of the most incorrigibly poor administrators anywhere in the game. Happily, not all of the suits have abdicated their responsibilities.

So when Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) members council — made up of the presidents of the 14 provincial affiliates — met via teleconference on Saturday there was enough opposition to stave off a proposal to make alarming changes to the memorandum of incorporation, CSA’s founding document.

The plan, which Cricbuzz has seen, called for increasing the minimum required majority to remove the president and vice-president from the current 66% to 80%, and to align voting with South Africa’s geopolitical provincial boundaries.

That would have reduced the number of members council votes from 14 to nine — the number of provinces, in legislative terms, in the country — which would have meant the support of all but one province would have been needed to get rid of the leadership.

Sources have told Cricbuzz that opposition to the proposal was led by Nic Kock, the president of the Western Province Cricket Association, who is said to have successfully argued for the matter to be deferred until after the pandemic has passed. Kock, who is not our source, apparently told his colleagues down the telephone line: “Let’s look each other in the eye before we make a decision on this.” It was decided to move the discussion to a workshop, which has not been scheduled. But that means there was at least some support for the idea, which flies in the face of sound governance.

Chris Nenzani has been CSA president since February 2013. His vice-president, Beresford Williams, has been in office only since last February but has sat on the board for as long as Nenzani. They have presided over financial losses that have been projected to reach USD54.9-million by the end of the 2022 rights cycle, while CSA’s governance has been questionable enough for long-term sponsors to desert them. Consequently, large sections of the cricketminded public consider the game to have been dragged into deep disrepute.

In other cricket cultures the captains of this stricken ship Nenzani would long since have been discharged dishonourably. But South Africans will have to wait until CSA’s annual meeting, scheduled for September 5, to find out if enough suits think they should be relieved of their posts. Nenzani’s time is up in terms of CSA’s constitution, but he has previously engineered a way to cling to power — last September, when he was gifted another year despite having served both his allotted three-year terms. Another attempt to prop him up, perhaps arguing that the uncertainty caused by Covid-19 should put major change on hold, cannot be discounted.

Saturday’s meeting also featured the appointment of three independent directors to replace those who resigned in December after losing faith in the way CSA was being run. A release on Tuesday heralded the arrival of Vuyokazi Memani-Sedile, Dheven Dharmalingam and Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, and detailed their lengthy and allegedly impressive records in business.

There was no mention of Kula-Ameyaw being accused of misusing taxpayers’ money on a trip to Ghana in March 2018 that was worth R90,000, or USD7,600 at the prevailing exchange rate. She attended a transformation workshop as an Estate Agency Affairs Board official despite the cash-strapped organisation having declared a moratorium on international travel. The discovery of her jaunt prompted disciplinary proceedings against her superior, which cost the equivalent of USD24,000.

Not that stalwart CSA watchers would have expected those details to be in Monday’s release. Nor would they have wondered whether Kula-Ameyaw’s messy past might have precluded her from being selected from among at least 87 candidates for the three positions. If you’ve kept an eye on CSA over the years you’ve seen this kind of thing before. And doubtless will again. It never really goes away, just like a virus.

First published by Cricbuzz.

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

No Banquo in CSA’s Macbeth

“The entire board should be fired or dissolved for rubbishing CSA’s brand.” – Gauteng president Jack Madiseng

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

SOME of Thabang Moroe’s best friends are Cricket South Africa (CSA) board members. That remains true even as pressure, from inside and outside the organisation, mounts on the under fire chief executive to resign.

But the previously strong bond between Moroe and CSA’s president, Chris Nenzani, has been broken. Now Moroe’s remaining allies on the board are taking aim at Nenzani for the mess the game is in. That is hardly surprising considering other alliances will need to be strengthened before Nenzani, having overstayed his welcome by a year, vacates his position in 2020. Even so, it offers an illuminating twist on a narrative that has hitherto dumped all the ills on Moroe’s desk.

There was more of that, although nudged in the board’s direction, in the letter Mohamed Iqbal Khan wrote to Nenzani on Wednesday to resign from CSA’s board: “The criticism in the media, and by the public who love and support cricket, has reached such a crescendo that I can no longer be deaf to the cries for immediate changes at CSA board level. Before … Shirley Zinn resigned [from the board this week], I still maintained that I would give things a chance, and wait until at least Saturday [when a board meeting is scheduled] for us to address the deep crisis we find ourselves in. I seriously doubt however that you and/or the board is capable of doing so, and in the circumstances, I have reached the only conclusion, and that is that I must resign my position on the board as well as my position as chairperson of the CSA finance committee.” Khan wrote that, “Unfortunately, all the fingers point at the CEO. But having said that, I cannot believe that you are not aware of the many issues that have caused this malaise, and to that extent, you are also complicit, and perhaps even the entire board. However, I can no longer be party to an organisation that is fast ruining the game. … I can no longer afford to be held accountable for the misconduct of the CEO. If I continue one day further as a member of the board, I will become an accomplice to what the CEO has done, and is doing.”

Khan slammed Sunday’s decision, rescinded six hours later, to revoke the accreditation of five senior journalists as “certainly unconstitutional and illegal” and said “blaming the head of communications [Thamie Mthembu] for mis-communicating or failing to communicate effectively with the media when he is ultimately responsible for such communication”. He damned Moroe further with “… if the CEO is or was not aware of what is happening in his office, then this aggravates his conduct”. Khan also alleged, among other issues, “several resignations in the CSA office due to what they claim is a legally toxic environment”, “widespread credit card abuse in the office”, and “very selective communication with SACA [the South African Cricketers’ Association, who on Wednesday threatened strike action], and a failure to engage with them in terms of the CSA collective agreement with SACA”.

Khan’s strong statements are being widely reported, less so that he is apparently being investigated by CSA’s ethics structures over a potential conflict of interest — his professional superior is Mustaq Ahmed Brey, who sits on the board of the Western Province Cricket Association (WPCA). Another member of the latter, Fagmeedah Petersen-Cook, formerly of the Gauteng board, posted on social media: “Jack Madiseng positioning himself for CSA presidency? As guilty as all the non-independents in the patronage network. I resigned as lead independent at Gauteng because of his behaviour.”

That brings us, admittedly not before time, to Moroe’s remaining allies, his rift with Nenzani, and what needs to happen in the coming months to keep power in South African cricket where it is now. In a letter to Nenzani and his vice-president, Beresford Williams, dated November 29, Madiseng, the Gauteng president and a member of the CSA board who has recently been made chair of the influential cricket committee, mounted a strong defence of Moroe — which meant attacking the lame duck Nenzani and his deputy. “I would like to exercise my fiduciary duty as a board member of CSA and express my disappointment at both of you for the poor or lack of leadership that we find our brand in,” Madiseng wrote. “I could have taken an easy path and resigned. Fortunately, I have mentors and guides that have advised me to be part of the change and solution at CSA. So I decided to act responsibly as a member of this board and bring the concerns stipulated below for your attention. … The poor CEO has been getting all the klaps [slaps] and punches from the media and the public without the presence of the CSA leadership, which is both of you. Let me unpack a couple of examples … to demonstrate your poor or non-visible leadership which has led to the excruciating and bad personal brand reputation of our CEO.” Whereupon Madiseng launched into critiques of the breakdown of CSA’s relationship with the WPCA, the ongoing delay in making key appointments, a slew of high-level suspensions, transformation issues, and a domestic restructure that could cost 70 players their jobs. “The leadership was nowhere to be found; non-existent and non-visible. The operational team [Moroe and his staff] is all alone. … My expectation was for both of you [Nenzani and Williams] to take the leadership and face the music on behalf of the board and executive team. It didn’t happen. … Kudos to the CEO and his executive for having the balls to take such astronomical and damaging reports from the public and media. … Your non-visibility gave the media and the public a perception that the CEO unilaterally makes all the decisions, which is not true. We all know that the CEO can’t act without a mandate from both of you. I hold ourselves (the board) accountable and not the CEO and his executive team. … If someone had to be fired or dismissed, in all honesty, the entire board should be fired or dissolved for rubbishing CSA’s brand.” It is true that turkeys do not vote for Christmas, but it is just as true that the turkeys who run South African cricket are a special breed. Madiseng says the only response he has had to his letter is a “defensive call from the leadership”, and that despite him following it up with “a reminder which fell on deaf ears”.

Madiseng followed Moroe as Gauteng president, and Moroe was CSA’s vice-president before being appointed their chief executive. The alliance between the two men runs deep, and its logical next level would be for Madiseng to succeed Nenzani as CSA president next year. Hence the conscious loosening of the ties between Moroe and the now expendable Nenzani. Williams will likely be Madiseng’s opponent in the coming fight. But, for that plan to come together, Moroe needs to keep his job — which is by no means certain what with figures of the stature of Ali Bacher, a known confidante of Moroe, now saying he should go.

In a statement on Thursday, the Willowton Group, whose Sunfoil subsidiary has in the past been a major CSA sponsor and still supports the game, added their voice to what Khan rightly called a crescendo. The company called for the “immediate resignation of the CEO”, the “immediate resignation of the president”, the “immediate reinstatement of the three suspended CSA officials [chief operating officer Naasei Appiah, interim director of cricket Corrie van Zyl, and sales and sponsorship head Clive Eksteen]” the “immediate reappointment of the two board members who have resigned”, the “immediate appointment of a lead independent director”, and an “immediate independent audit and review”.

That’s a lot of immediacy, and some of it may indeed happen soon enough. CSA have scheduled a board meeting for Saturday, which is to be followed by a press conference. Not since Hansie Cronjé and all that has a South African cricket gathering been so keenly anticipated. A drama of Macbethian proportions is sweeping across the stage. With a difference: there is no Banquo because there are no good guys.

First published by Cricbuzz.

Finally, a voice of reason from within SA cricket

“There is too much at stake to permit our great sport of cricket to fall any further. Silence would be much more painful.” – Norman Arendse stands up to be counted.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

THE most damning indictment yet of the parlous state of the game in South Africa came from within on Monday.

An open letter from former Cricket South Africa (CSA) president Norman Arendse, who has also served as the organisation’s lead independent director and is among the most senior administrators in the country, exploded into public view like a supernova as the sun was setting on an already extraordinary day. The missive details the problems the game faces in the unsparing language Arendse deals with daily as one of South Africa’s top Senior Counsels. It only added to the gravity of the moment that Arendse, himself one of the most polarising figures in cricket, could understand and articulate how acute the situation had become.

“It is painful to pen this letter,” Arendse begins. “However, there is just too much at stake to permit our great sport of cricket to fall any further. Silence would be much more painful. Therefore, I write this open letter of appeal to our cricket family members, the CSA board, the CSA members’ council [CSA’s highest authority, which is comprised largely of the presidents of the 11 provincial boards] and the paid CSA administrators to act before it is too late. I suspect, however, that the horse has bolted, and that we are beyond the precipice, and into the abyss.

“As a former CSA president [in 2007 and 2008], and until just over a year ago, the CSA lead independent director, I have the utmost respect for prescribed procedures and protocols to be followed when differences arise within the cricket family. It appears, however, that for several reasons that have manifested publicly, the family differences cannot and will not be resolved through the prescribed route.

“What prompts me to say this is not sourced from any insider knowledge or some whistle-blower; they are sourced in CSA’s own public pronouncements and written media statements: the restructuring of our domestic competitions; the concentration of power in the hands of the CEO [Thabang Moroe] to make key appointments (approved by the CSA board); the failure to make key board committee appointments including the failure to appoint the independent lead director (after more than a year since the election of the board; the suspension of senior executive officials; the ongoing dispute with SACA [the South African Cricketers’ Association, who are taking CSA to court over a proposed restructure that could cost 70 professional players their jobs]; and the recent dispute with Western Province Cricket which ended in a humiliating loss … at arbitration [where CSA’s decision to suspend the Western Province board was declared unlawful].

“The last straw must surely be the most recent banning by CSA of several highly respected cricket journalists [whose accreditation was revoked, then reinstated after a public outcry] who collectively have decades of experience in cricket. (Some of them I have disagreed with both privately and publicly, but it never entered my mind to suggest or propose that they are banned from the game). Their banning is unconstitutional, and unlawful, and must be deplored by all cricket-lovers.”

And all that before Arendse got to what makes cricket, and everything else, go round: “The future sustainability of cricket is also at grave risk given the public CSA pronouncement of a projected shortfall of hundreds of millions of rands.” CSA have estimated that they could face losses of up to USD 44.9-million by the end of the 2022 rights cycle. SACA put that number closer to USD 68.6-million. “We had over [USD 41.2-million] in reserve. These reserves have now dwindled dramatically, and with the unsponsored Mzansi Super League [that lost USD 5.4-million last year, which could go up to USD 6.8-million this year], these reserves will likely be depleted shortly.” Arendse doubted that Moroe “is capable of arresting CSA’s decline, let alone turning around the organisation to put it on a more secure and sustainable footing”. “All of the above leads me to one very sad conclusion: the CSA board has simply abdicated its fiduciary responsibilities by failing to act with the due care, skill and diligence required of it by the Companies Act, and the CSA constitution. To the extent that the CSA members’ council are aware of the above-mentioned shortcomings and failures of governance, they too must share responsibility, and be held accountable. I … call on the board and the members’ council to meet urgently to consider the matters raised in this letter, and to hold the CEO (and those who have been complicit) to account.”

Arendse signed off by saying he had shared the contents of his letter with Vusi Pikoli, a former CSA board member who chaired the social and ethics committee, and said Pikoli — a former head of South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority — “endorses the sentiments expressed”.

Not long before Arendse’s bombshell hit, the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) issued a statement condemning the treatment of the five journalists who had their accreditation revoked and demanding CSA apologise to them. “SANEF believes CSA’s actions will have a chilling effect on the media’s ability to cover all aspects of cricket, not just what happens on the field of play, but also what happens behind closed doors where the sport is administered. CSA’s actions smack of bullying, are unacceptable and must be fiercely resisted in order to preserve the independence of the media and journalists’ ability to report without fear or favour.” SANEF took a dim view of Moroe’s admission on radio on Monday that the “journalists’ accreditation was revoked because the organisation was unhappy about their reporting on CSA and the sport. Moroe’s statements are deeply concerning.”

That came before another statement, this one from Standard Bank, one of CSA’s few remaining major sponsors, who demanded a meeting on Monday “in the wake of governance and conduct media reports which have brought the name of cricket into disrepute”.

And so the sun set on another strange day in the annals of South African cricket — just like the day before it. The next day? Can’t hardly wait.

First published by Cricbuzz.

The numbers behind CSA’s beef with the WPCA

Damaging, humiliating legal loss comes with confidence in CSA at all-time low.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

THE non-payment of less than a 10th of the debt the Western Province Cricket Association (WPCA) owed Cricket South Africa (CSA) triggered the latter’s ill-fated decision to take control of the province’s board.

The saga ended dramatically on Tuesday when an arbitration court damned CSA’s actions as “invalid, unlawful and set aside”.

Philip Ginsburg SC, the arbitrator, found — as detailed in documents TMG Digital has seen — that CSA “had no right to invoke the provisions” of two clauses of the memorandum of incorporation between the national body and their affiliates.

The defeat, suffered with costs, was a damaging and humiliating blow to CSA, who are under mounting pressure to reassure cricketminded South Africans that their current board and staff are worthy of being recognised as the custodians of the game on any front.

CSA are haemorrhaging money, have been beset by multiple suspensions, interim appointments, resignations, legal battles and public relations disasters.

And they have to find a way to right a national men’s team who suffered their worst Test series thrashing in 83 years when they lost 3-0 in India last month.

Consequently, public and private confidence in the organisation is at an all-time low.

Spectators are voting with their feet by staying away from Mzansi Super League matches in their thousands.

One provincial insider said this week, “We’re all on one ship, and I’m scared because we should have bought better binoculars for the ice-berg watchers.

“It’s starting to feel like we’re on the Titanic.”

Whatever the quality of the binoculars involved, CSA should have been able to avoid the WPCA ice-berg. Or were CSA the ice-berg?

Ginsburg wrote: ”In terms of the loan agreement, entered into between CSA and WPCA on 28 May 2019, an amount of R48 900 000.00 was advanced by CSA to WPCA; and in terms of the second loan agreement, entered into between the parties on 6 August 2019, an amount of R33 968 484.00 was advanced by CSA to WPCA.”

That adds up to R82 868 484 — which formed part of the mountain of cash the WPCA need to finance a major construction project on 48 430 hectares at Newlands that could be worth up to R800-million.

The provincial structure owns 76% of the shares in WPCA Property Holdings [Prop Co], the company “formed by WPCA to control and manage the Newlands development”, and CSA the other 24%.

Back to Ginsburg: “On 6 September 2019, WPCA submitted an additional request for a short-term interim loan from CSA in the amount of R8-million to pay the building contractor who was responsible for construction on the property.

“An amount of R7 513 757.99 became due and payable on 30 August 2019 and was overdue by the time that WPCA submitted its request for additional funding to CSA.”

Knees jerked, trigger fingers twitched, leaps were leapt. The straw that broke the camel’s back — R7 513 757.99 — represents 9.07% of the total bill of R82 868 484.

“The board of CSA was of the view that the board of WPCA continued to operate the business of WPCA ‘under, in the minimum, distressed conditions, which was contrary to the membership requirements placed on all members of CSA’,” Ginsburg wrote.

“It is important to note that this statement is based on the fact that WPCA had, from April 2019 to September 2019, sought and obtained from CSA a number of short-term loans in order to provide funding to Prop Co, which in turn would use these funds to facilitate the Newlands development.

“In paragraph 38 of its answering affidavit CSA states that ‘it was the several requests by WPCA (directly or indirectly by its subsidiary) for loans to fund the development that was and remains the genesis of CSA’s concerns about governance and financial affairs of WPCA’.”

The WPCA board were informed on September 20 that they had been suspended and the next day André Odendaal, a former WPCA chief executive, “assumed his duties” as the CSA appointed administrator.

By all accounts, Odendaal’s judiciously applied influence has been the only less than negative aspect of this sorry soap opera.

CSA’s release on Tuesday in reaction to Ginsburg’s ruling said the body “respects the outcome and considering the award and abides by it”.

Importantly, “CSA has no intention of subjecting this award to a judicial review.”

The release ended hopefully with, “CSA sends its best wishes to the WPCA.”

Asked on Friday what would be done to repair the damage to the relationship between the organisations, CSA did not reply.

Also importantly, would the WPCA be able to service its debt to CSA?

“The WPCA board is confident it will timeously meet its financial obligations towards CSA,” WPCA president Nic Kock told TMG Digital on Friday.

Happily for all concerned, the episode has now ended.

Let there not be a sequel.

First published by TMG Digital.

CSA accept legal loss, but look to change MOI

“The unlawful suspension by CSA, which included the physical banning of [WPCA] board members from Newlands, was serious over-reach by the national body, and if allowed to go uncontested would have set a bad precedent for governance in sport.” – the WPCA lay into CSA.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

CRICKET South Africa (CSA) have accepted that they have lost their fight for control of the Western Province Cricket Association (WPCA) board.

But attempts to tighten the national body’s grip on its affiliates’ affairs could be on the cards.

On Tuesday the WPCA board won, with costs, the arbitration case they brought against CSA — who put them under administration in September.

“CSA has reviewed the arbitration award and respects the outcome and considering the award and abides by it,” a CSA release on Wednesday said.

“CSA has no intention of subjecting this award to a judicial review.”

The WPCA took a more strident line in a release on Wednesday in which they described themselves as “vindicated” and that damned CSA’s actions as “invalid” and, repeatedly, as “unlawful” and “illegal”.

“The illegal suspension of the WPCA board has come at a great cost to the individual board members, all of whom have extensive corporate governance experience and a proven track record in contributing to Western Province cricket,” the WPCA release said.

“The board remains committed to protecting the interests of its members, clubs and the faithful supporters of Western Province cricket.

“The board is of the view that the unlawful suspension by CSA, which included the physical banning of board members from Newlands cricket ground, has been an example of serious over-reach by the national body into the affairs of the association, and if allowed to go uncontested would have set a bad precedent for governance in sport.”

But there was a dark lining in what will be seen as a silver cloud in the WPCA boardroom.

“In his analysis the arbitrator has identified certain shortcomings in the CSA memorandum of incorporation [MOI] which CSA will address immediately with a view to ensuring that the CSA governance framework remains robust, relevant and fit for purpose,” the CSA release said.

That could mean CSA will look to change the procedure that affords them the step-in rights they used to usurp the WPCA board.

CSA’s arbitration case would have foundered if they were found not to have implemented their existing step-in rights properly.

But they have set themselves a stiff challenge if they are going to “address immediately” amending the MOI.

The document governs the relationship between CSA and their affiliates, and changing it will require a notice period and the agreement of a large majority of those affiliates.

Disagreement over a construction project at Newlands led to CSA sidelining WPCA’s board, though the day-to-day running of the ground and the union continued as before under WPCA chief executive Nabeal Dien and his staff.

The project could be worth up to R800-million when complete, and would make the WPCA significantly less financially dependent on CSA.

To get it built the WPCA needed to borrow R81-million from CSA, who have since called in the loan.

CSA cited spectator safety concerns for taking action against the WPCA board, but it is believed poor communication between the two played a role.

André Odendaal, Dien’s predecessor as WPCA chief executive, was appointed as the administrator.

“The ruling by the arbitrator this afternoon is very clear,” Odendaal told TMG Digital on Tuesday night.

“This is a position I did not seek, and I am happy to abide by a decision reached after due process.

“I trust that the decisions and actions I have made working closely with [Dien] in the past two months have contributed a little to ensuring the WPCA and the stadium development project remain on a solid and sustainable footing.”

First published by TMG Digital

WPCA board win legal battle with CSA

Arbitration case won with costs

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

THE Western Province Cricket Association (WPCA) board have won their arbitration case against Cricket South Africa (CSA).

That should mean the WPCA board, who were put under administration by CSA in September, will be re-instated — but CSA could challenge the decision.

“My lawyers have just called me and told me we have won the arbitration with costs,” WPCA president Nic Kock told TMG Digital.

Kock, an advocate, said he would study the finding closely before commenting further.

Another official said CSA’s legal team were considering their options, which could include taking the case on review.

CSA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a decision announced on September 22, CSA took control of the WPCA’s board because of disagreements over a major construction project at Newlands.

CSA cited spectator safety concerns for the move, but it is believed poor communication between WPCA and CSA played a role in the impasse.

The project could be worth up to R800-million when complete, and would make the WPCA significantly less financially dependent on CSA.

But, to get it built, the WPCA needed to borrow R81-million from CSA — who have since called in the loan.

Although the WPCA’s board are not currently in control of the province’s affairs — CSA appointed former WPCA chief executive André Odendaal as administrator — day-to-day business proceeded as normal with current WPCA chief executive Nabeal Dien at the helm.

That has meant Newlands remains on track to host the second Test against England, which starts on January 3.

CSA are also fighting on another legal front — the South African Cricketers’ Association have launched a High Court action over a plan to restructure the domestic game that could see up to 70 professional players lose their jobs.

First published by TMG Digital.