Civil war between Cricket SA and players intensifies

The relationship between Cricket South Africa (CSA) and the South African Players Association (Saca) plumbed new depths after the players’ union on Wednesday announced it has launched a formal dispute with the federation over last season’s inaugural Mzansi Super League.

It relates to unpaid image rights – understood to be in the region of R2 million – which was one of the cornerstones of the local T20 tournament’s commercial rights agreement.

Tony Irish, outgoing Saca CEO, believes the course of action has become unavoidable due to CSA’s continued inaction.

“Unfortunately CSA has persistently refused to pay an agreed amount relating to the use of the players commercial rights and consequently the players have yet to be paid for these” he said in a statement.

“This has occurred despite CSA having benefited from the use of the rights in last year’s MSL. We have been trying to resolve this with CSA for many months but have now reached the point where formal steps have to be taken as players remain out of pocket.”

It was reported that the governing body did send Saca correspondence last weekend signalling its intention to fulfill those obligations, apparently to avoid the exact type of public communication that occurred on Wednesday.

CSA’s apparent unwillingness to pay out the amount, which can’t exactly be considered monumental in modern terms, will raise further questions over its financial position.

The federation told parliament earlier this year that it was projecting a massive R654 million loss over a four-year cycle.

However, Saca having taken CSA to court because it believes that deficit is being understated and is also being used to push through a controversial restructuring of domestic cricket.

“In normal circumstances one would have expected the court application to be heard in or around October this year”, said Irish.

“However failures on the part of CSA to comply with the time periods provided for in the rules of court have led to unnecessary delays.  CSA also failed to respond for a long period to attempts to establish a process aimed at resolving the issues around the domestic restructure.  All of this has obviously been very frustrating for SACA and it creates uncertainty for the players.”

Saca insist in court documents that the move would severely affect the livelihoods of professional players in the country.

The union also continues to be sidelined.

“None of our concerns on the financial front have been dealt with,” said Irish.

“Instead we are now excluded from attending CSA’s finance and commercial committee meetings.

“I wish to emphasise that despite all of this SACA remains willing to sit down with CSA in a genuine and good faith attempt to resolve these issues.  We wish to play a responsible role in dealing with the financial picture and we know that many of the issues require mutually agreed solutions.  This has to happen however in the context of good faith engagement between us, as the representative of the players, and CSA.”

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