Breaking News: South African Government Suspends CSA, Takes Control Of Cricket In The Country

South African cricket has undergone a significant upheaval as per the latest developments. The South African Olympic body has taken over the charge of cricket in the country, which could entirely go against the rules of the International Cricket Council (ICC) on government interference. The same could lead the national team being prohibited from competing at the international level.

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Cricket South Africa (CSA) has witnessed some resignations of late as, including the boss Chris Neznani and CEO Jacques Faul vacating their position. The South African cricket team played their last international game back in March when they faced Australia in the three-game ODI series with the Proteas whitewashing their opponents.

South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) has directed the CSA through a letter that all their stakeholders have to step aside from the administration position on full pay as the SASCOC has demanded that there existed plenty of instances of maladministration and malpractice that occurred in December 2019.

“The CSA board and those senior executives who serve ex-officio on the board (the company secretary, the acting CEO, the CFO and the COO) are directed to step aside from the administration of CSA on full pay” pending the outcome of a month-long investigation by a task team into what SASCOC termed “many instances of maladministration and malpractice that have occurred since at least December 2019” the letter said as quoted by Cricbuzz.

The letter further said that such practices have caused great damage amongst the members, former and current members of the national team of Proteas, stakeholders, sponsors, and members of the cricket-loving people. SASCOC administers the relationship between state and sport federations, having the authority to put CSA under administration. The decision was taken through a unanimous vote in a meeting on Tuesday.

“This has manifestly caused great concern and consternation amongst your own members, former and current members of the national team of the Proteas, stakeholders, sponsors, and members of the cricket-loving public,” the letter said. “There can be no doubt that this has caused cricket to lose the trust and confidence of members of the public, stakeholders, sponsors and the players represented by SACA [the South African Cricketers’ Association]. All this has brought cricket into disrepute,” it mentioned.

SASCOC revealed to have addressed these issues with Cricket South Africa:

SASCOC further added that they tried to resolve the conflicts through a couple of meetings, one of those could not take place since CSA could not submit the forensic report to them. The correspondence added that CSA’s claim of making all the reports available only to limited members of the board is unreasonable and irrational.

“SASCOC has attempted to address these issues in two meetings with the CSA board: one was exploratory, and the other failed to take place mainly because of the fact that CSA failed to make the… forensic report available to the SASCOC board despite promises and undertakings by CSA to do so. CSA is in receipt of our letter which records that the board’s decision to make the said report available only on a limited basis to the president and board members of SASCOC, is wholly unreasonable and irrational given the apparent nature and scope of the report,” adding further.

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