CEO Thabang Moroe of CSA and CEO Tony Irish of SACA during the Cricket South Africa (CSA) and South African Cricketers' Association (SACA) Joint media briefing at CSA Offices on July 31, 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Photo by Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images)
The South African Cricketers’ Association (SACA) on Monday said it would not participate in any committee to advise Cricket South Africa (CSA) on the future of domestic cricket unless the governing body withdraws its decision made in April 2019 to move to a 12-team domestic structure.
“Although CSA has announced that SACA will be part of this committee we have yet to be formally contacted by CSA on this,” SACA CEO Tony Irish said via a press statement.
Irish also remained firm in SACA’s stance: “I confirm however that SACA will not participate in this committee until the existing restructure decision is formally withdrawn.
“The fact that CSA is now, for the first time, going to look into what the domestic structure should be is a clear admission that the decision eight months ago was taken without this being done. This is precisely why we had to launch legal proceedings against CSA.
“Given that this is the subject of the court application, we cannot participate in a formal committee where decisions taken by it may affect the outcome of the court case. It is therefore obvious to us that the restructure decision must be withdrawn and the court case settled with us first.”
Irish noted that SACA was eager to find solutions to the sport’s financial challenges and the way forward for domestic cricket.
“We have no problem in sitting down with the likes of David Richardson and Graeme Smith to find these. However, this time around the process needs to be done properly and if the current MOU (memorandum of understanding) is to be changed, because of a change in the domestic structure, then agreement must be reached with SACA. This is the only way to bring clarity for the players on what will happen next season and to ensure that we are able to deal with how any changes will affect them.”
Irish concluded his statement by saying the CSA board to make way.
“We also again reiterate our call for the leadership of the CSA board to accept accountability for the position in which cricket has been placed. We repeat our call for that leadership to step down.”
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