Cricket South Africa will find it tough to ‘cut the bleeding’
They're allegedly in talks expensively cut ties with their T20 Global League commercial partner as questions abound.
Thabang Moroe. Photo: Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images.
Cricket South Africa’s acting chief executive, Thabang Moroe, said the T20 Global League had to be postponed as a way to “cut the bleeding” arising from rising costs.
But it seems like the troubled local federation will have to pull out all the stops to do that.
Also read: Cricket SA’s checks and balances under fire after T20 fiasco
According to Cricbuzz, CSA are allegedly involved in an expensive legal battle as they consider cancelling their agreement with Ortus Sport and Entertainment, their commercial partner for the tournament.
Moroe and his chief financial officer, Naasei Appiah, were in London to negotiate a settlement.
It’s expected to amount to over at least five millions dollars (R67 million).
However, CSA and Ortus have denied the claim and insist their working relationship is still ongoing.
CSA’s association with Ortus is actually one of the first factors that brought the transparency of the tournament into question.
The company was only formed in April this year when Veru Nair left his post at Lagardere, a respected global rights practitioner.
Nair somehow managed to snatch the CSA account with him.
Under Ortis, the T20 GL failed to sign vital broadcasting rights agreements.
It’s one of the reasons why the tournament became too expensive for CSA to host in 2017.
Yet even though Moroe is now the man tasked with damage limitation, questions are being asked over his own role in the fiasco.
“There is still more information that I need in front of me, more information I need to give to my board. I need a team to work with to make sure we come out with all of this information because I can’t do it by myself,” he had said on Tuesday.
But Moroe was on CSA sub-committee that was supposed to act as a middleman between the board and Haroon Lorgat, who quit as CSA CEO almost three weeks ago.
To say he wasn’t kept in the loop is possibly an indictment on his own willingness to have been a watchdog.
Furthermore, CSA are likely to have to compensate the contracted players for the tournament given that many of them passed up other playing opportunities to participate.
That will also be expensive.
The South African Cricketers Association have already called for an independent investigation.
- This article has been amended to reflect CSA and Ortus Sports position on the matter.
