CSA allowed breathing space from Global T20 headache

Cricket South Africa (CSA) seem to have succeeded in extricating themselves from the agreement with the T20 Global League (GLT20) team owners that had them feeling rather hemmed in, with a new financial model due to be presented to the board on Sunday.

With the GLT20 task team having their initial proposal rejected by the CSA board in March, they had to go back to the team owners to renegotiate.

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Given that this in all likelihood involved a smaller return on the franchise owners’ investment, it must have been an interesting pow-wow, but it seems to have gone well, judging by what acting CEO Thabang Moroe told The Citizen.

“Work on the T20 Global League is continuing behind the scenes and the board will meet on Sunday and make a key decision about its future. Then the league’s management will be able to focus on a specific direction. On June 2 they will deliver a final proposal to the board and members’ forum.

“The task team has presented a proposal before, back in March, but that was rejected, with the league’s management told to go back and renegotiate with the current team owners,” Moroe said.

Moroe also confirmed the fate of the two high-ranking CSA officials who erred in judgement two months ago by wearing Sonny Bill Williams masks during the David Warner controversy.

While former head of communications Altaaf Kazi has resigned from CSA and taken up a similar role with Tourism SA, head of commercial and marketing Clive Eksteen is back at work, Moroe saying his disciplinary hearing has been held but the sanction will not be made public to “protect the company and Clive”.

Moroe said he was also positive over how negotiations over a new memorandum of understanding were progressing with the South African Cricketers’ Association (Saca), saying the three full days they have booked for talks next week showed the players that CSA meant business over ensuring a new deal would be acceptable to all parties.

“Things are progressing very positively, although we have had no meetings so far this month because our legal advisor suffered a bereavement. But talks will start again this coming week and we have a full three days blocked off with Saca. It’s important we reach the deadline of June 30 we have agreed on, which should indicate to our employees, the players, how seriously we view this matter,” Moroe said.

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