SA’s T20 League put on hold
MILLIONS of rands would be at stake if the T20 Global challenge went ahead this year, Cricket South Africa (CSA) interim chief executive Thabang Moroe said. He said the board had not been kept “fully appraised” about preparations for the competition, due to start on November 3. This comes after CSA former chief executive Haroon Lorgat “parted ways” with CSA two weeks ago. Lorgat was at the forefront of establishing the league.
Following a hastily arranged teleconference yesterday morning, CSA postponed its much-hyped T20 tournament until next year.
“The board takes full responsibility in terms of everything that’s happened, because the board took its trust and put it in the hands of a few individuals,” said Moroe.
“Obviously not all the information that the board needed to have in order for the board to be comfortable to continue with this league up to this stage, well, that information wasn’t forthcoming and some of it is still not forthcoming.”
“It only makes sense for the board to agree to postpone this league and to look into the matters of this league as well as CSA and come out with facts and a way forward.”
Moroe said that the establishment of an inquiry was an option open to the board – “its still early stages” – but if that occurred he hoped to have it wrapped up within a month. One area that will require scrutiny is the franchise fee licensing agreements.
“The information that went to EY (the accounting firm tasked with vetting the owners), with which the company is currently sitting, is what it is, so us calling our lawyers and saying ‘have a look at all these agreements in terms of what CSA has entered into and tell us if due process was followed and if everyone was treated the same’, what we’d have to do. Was money paid for licence fees? We need to look at the entire picture for us to pass judgement.”
Moroe said the cost implications for going ahead with the tournament had worsened since he said last Friday that the operating model for the event was “watertight”. CSA were set to lose between R82 million and R109m every year for the next five years if it went ahead with the tournament.
“We are still very confident with our model, but for it to work it needs to have money supporting it and that money cannot be coming from Cricket SA alone.”
A significant portion of those funds was to have come from the broadcast deal which Lorgat failed to organise and which hastened his exit from the federation.
Lorgat had on a number of occasions claimed a broadcast deal was close to being agreed, but it is believed the astronomical figures he demanded could not be met by SuperSport, who are already rights holders for domestic and international cricket in this country.
Some of the owners were disappointed by the decision to postpone the tournament.
Tony Irish, the SA Cricketers Association (the players union) chief executive, said the body would have to carefully assess what compensation was due to the players.
“They have all signed contracts and made the various arrangements. Players have given up other opportunities to participate in the Global T20 League. There is a whole range of reasons why the players need to be compensated,” he said.