Supersport Pulls out of Equity Deal with CSA for New T20 league

South Africa’s television network, Supersport has pulled out of an equity deal with Cricket South Africa (CSA) for the upcoming  T20 league in 2018.

Meanwhile, Supersport claimed that it had terminated discussions for an agreement on July 23 while still showing interest in broadcasting the event.

“We have used our best endeavours to reach consensus with CSA around that shareholding model, but this has unfortunately not happened. The discussions on the in-principle shareholding agreement terminated on 23 July 2018.

We have therefore decided to discontinue negotiations about shareholding. We are, however, engaged in constructive discussions with CSA regarding the broadcast of the event,” SuperSport’s CEO Gideon Khobane said.

However, CSA now lacks an investor following Supersport’s withdrawal, adding to their problems about the T20 league. The television network was supposed to have 49 percent stakes. However, it didn’t go well with former T20Global owners. As a result, they had two highly-charged meetings with the CSA officials.

The proposed tournament has already hit turbulence with no details finalised yet. Only the name of the marquee players has come out like Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Jason Roy, Eoin Morgan, Kevin Pietersen, etc.

The tournament doesn’t even have a name. Furthermore, with only two-and-a-half months in hand, there are many things to do.

“The button on this should have been pressed a week ago and it hasn’t,” said a cricket insider. “The tournament is now two-and-a-half months away and very little has been done,” he added.

Previously, Cricket South Africa’s acting head of communications Koketso Gaofetoge declined to comment when asked about the state of affairs. He had mentioned that CSA’s chief executive, Thabang Moroe, would release a statement on the tournament’s future in due course.