As Cricket South Africa (CSA) president Chris Nenzani addressed media via a video stream on Tuesday, he acknowledged that the organisation was facing a ‘crisis’ in December last year when CEO Thabang Moroe was suspended.
The investigation into that suspension is still ongoing and Nenzani and the CSA leadership is under its own significant pressure to find a resolution in that matter, but on Tuesday Nenzani was asked about how things were allowed to develop to this point.
In September 2017, CEO Haroon Lorgat parted ways with the organisation after what CSA identified as malpractice in his handling of the T20 Global League; South African cricket’s desired T20 product that had secured lucrative investment from all around the world in the form of franchise owners and sponsors.
The absence of a broadcasting deal, though, was an issue facing the Lorgat-led administration.
The official line from CSA was that there had been a significant breakdown between Lorgat and the board, with chief financial officer Naasei Appiah sidelined from major decisions relating to the Global League.
Lorgat’s departure opened the door for Moroe, who was named as the acting CEO of CSA shortly afterwards.
Moroe would be named permanent CEO in July 2018, but he was suspended in December last year on allegations of misconduct.
A series of controversial developments transpired under Moroe’s tenure, from the suspensions of key CSA officials to removing the media accreditations of five South African cricket journalists.
When Standard Bank pulled its sponsorship of the national men’s team, alarm bells were ringing and it all resulted in Moroe’s suspension.
On Tuesday, Nenzani was asked if the beginning of the ‘crisis’ could be directly related to the departure of Lorgat.
He did not think so.
“You need to look at context of issues. What were the issues that we were dealing with at that time?” Nenzani said.
“We had the T20 Global League that we had to can because of a number of reasons and we managed to launch the Mzansi Super League, which unfortunately could not have the appeal that the T20 Global League would have had in terms of international sponsors and international positioning.
“We had massive losses under the MSL and given the challenge we had with our financial position, we were able to project that we were going to make a loss of R654 million.”
“There may not necessarily be a causal nexus between when Haroon left and when Thabang left. You have a number of issues in between that. You cannot trace all of these things to the time when Haroon left.
“We had to deal with these issues around the T20 Global League … the owners and the fallout … and then still we managed to launch new league.”
One of the major issues facing the MSL, as was the case with the T20 Global League, was the absence of a lucrative broadcast deal.
Under Moroe, the MSL rights were eventually given to the free-to-air SABC for 2018 and again in 2019 after negotiations with SuperSport broke down.
According to Nenzani, that was a decision that made commercial sense for the tournament.
“The offer that was given by SuperSport is nowhere near what you are saying,” he said to a question suggesting that the SuperSport offer was worth R150 million.
“It’s true that SABC did not put up money for 2018, but there were more benefits going to the SABC because of its reach. There was revenue in kind that was offered to CSA and the opportunity to have a national footprint that was bigger.
“They (SuperSport) were offering money that would not have been meaningful for the tournament.”
Under the leadership of current acting CEO and director of cricket Graeme Smith, CSA are understood to be in advanced discussions with SuperSport over the broadcasting of the 2020 MSL, which is likely to take place in December.
