Global League T20 may not be as glamorous as planned
JOHANNESBURG: Thabang Moroe will stay on for two more months as the acting boss of South African cricket.
An announcement on the Global League T20 is also expected later this week.
CSA will begin the hunt for a new chief executive this week, as the federation seeks resolutions to a number of key issues.
Moroe, was notified about the continuation of his role as interim CEO at a Board meeting at the weekend. The two month extension means Moroe will have acted in the position for 10 months, a lengthy period of time that Independent Media understands has caused great concern among many on CSA’s Board of Directors.
The Board was understood to be split ‘50/50’ about asking Moroe to continue in an acting capacity, but given the number of crucial items on the agenda it was felt that having him stay in the position would cause the least amount of runctions. Top of the agenda this week, was the negotiations over the Memorandum of Understanding with the players representatives, the SA Cricketers Association. Moroe has been locked in a two-day meeting this week with SACA over the MOU, which among other things determines contracts for all players in the country, including the national team and domestic players.
Moroe said he was hoping that the deal would be wrapped up this week, but left room for further negotiations, until the final deadline day on June 30. “If it is possible, for Cricket SA and SACA to agree on some of the contentious issues, then the MOU will probably be signed in the next two weeks,” Moroe said.
An announcement regarding the GLT20 is expected later this week, but on that topic CSA finds itself in a quagmire too as the original owners continue to await compensation following the postponement of the event last October.
Cricket SA are understood to want to launch the new T20 competition this summer, although it is understood it will be a lot more diluted than the glamorous event envisaged last year. For one there is not a massive amount of time on the calendar next summer, particularly for the Proteas players – who would be the stars of the show and thus the major attraction for the potential commercial partners – especially with the 2019 World Cup being a priority.
Moroe has been the front man as far as negotiations with a broadcast partner – understood to be satellite channel SuperSport – for the GLT20, but the financial figure is expected to be a lot lower than was envisaged for the event last year.
Meanwhile Cricket SA have added an extra expense to its already heavily constrained finances by resolving to increase the number of franchises that will compete at domestic level. There are currently six and at the weekend, CSA’s president, Chris Nenzani, in his speech at the federation’s end of season Awards said the board had resolved to increase the number of franchises although at this stage it is not known by how many.
“The resolution was passed at the recent transformation Indaba, to expand the number of franchises. This was agreed by the Board and the provincial members,” said Moroe.
However he couldn’t say how many teams would be added to the domestic competitions, but that any additions would not occur this coming season.
“Whoever you award a franchise team to they need to have a budget to be able operationalise th e team, they need top be able to be set up marketing and commercial proposals in order to have sponsors for that team, or those teams,” Moroe explained. “Given we are already working on the schedules now, those people don’t have an opportunity to budget properly. It cannot happen this season.”
The reasons behind the expansion are sound. Cricket SA’s developmental initiatives are working well and bringing more players into the system which Moroe said was creating a “bottleneck” at senior provincial level, with too many players for too few teams.
The trouble for CSA is that currently one of its franchises, the Warriors in the Eastern Cape doesn’t have a main sponsor which indicates how hard it would be for a new franchise to attract one. “As things stand, one can say we can’t have an additional team or teams this season (2018/19), but definitely next season is possible if we can provide the appropriate plans of how we can roll it out from a management point of view,” Moroe added.