JOHANNESBURG - Cricket South Africa’s embattled president Chris Nenzani chose to resign even though he had just three weeks of his tenure left bringing an end to a tumultuous seven-year period, that has seen the organisation drowning in a sea of controversy.
Nenzani, a school principal in East London, has been at the head of Cricket SA for seven years, the final 12 months of which were controversially added to what is normally a constitutionally mandated two-term period of three years each. The decision to take the extra year was one Nenzani admitted he regretted.
“Mr. Nenzani has led Cricket South Africa with dedication and astutely since 2013,” a Cricket SA statement read on Monday morning, confirming his resignation.
Nenzani wrote to the Board last Friday to say he would resign a decision that took effect from the following day.
In the last year, CSA has suffered a catastrophic administrative meltdown, that has seen its CEO suspended - on full pay - three senior managers suspended and face disciplinary hearings, two of those managers disputing their sackings, a continued struggle to acquire much needed income and in the last month a volcano explode around transformation and the mistreatment of black players in the national men’s team.
Nenzani has struggled to lead the organisations, with a variety of parties both inside and outside of CSA pulling the organisation and sport in different directions.
Graeme Smith, appointed as the full time Director of Cricket, described a “cancer” within the organisation when describing its administrative leadership, something Nenzani must bear a lot of responsibility for.
In particular the decision to give Thabang Moroe more “responsibility” as CEO is one that Nenzani, as chairman of the Board of Directors, will regret. He vehemently disputed that charge at last year’s CSA AGM, claiming the Board would still hold Moroe accountable.
Just how much the Board and Nenzani failed in that oversight became clear in November and December last year as Moroe plunged the organisation deeper into the mire, failing to acquire sponsors, overseeing the restructuring of the national men’s management, botched the hiring of Smith and then suspended the accreditation of five cricket journalists.
Nenzani claimed that by hosting a press conference on the second Saturday of December 2019, he was showing that he and the Board were taking responsibility for the mess into which the organisation had been dragged.
The Moroe issue drags on, with no finality yet reached on his future, but Nenzani’s is now clear.
Cricket SA will elect a new president at the AGM to be held on September 5.
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