Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) provincial presidents, who make up the federation’s Members Council – its most powerful decision-making body – have for nearly two years dared Sports, Arts and Culture Minister, Nathi Mthethwa to take action against them.
Yesterday (Sunday), Mthethwa said he would. In terms of the powers available to him in the National Sports and Recreation Act, he can revoke recognition of Cricket South Africa as the ruling body of the sport in South Africa. That would mean that CSA cannot hand out national caps and that the Proteas would no longer be the representative national cricket side of the country.
CSA’s Members Council pushed Mthethwa to make that decision.
He has given the organisation ample opportunity to make the changes to its administrative structure, that would lead to a majority of independent directors on the new board.
However, at a Special General Meeting on Saturday evening, where the changes were supposed to be ratified, the Members Council chose not to do so. They didn’t explain why.
A week earlier, the Council had informed Mthethwa, who was present at Saturday’s meeting, that it would make those changes.
Mthethwa has shown extreme patience with CSA, since the whole administrative mess at the organisation exploded into public view at the end of 2019. He tried to let the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) deal with the matter, but that failed. Then he was told by CSA, in a letter signed by its former president Beresford Williams, last October, that he didn’t understand the National Sports and Recreation Act.
Having threatened on more than one occasion to invoke the powers available to him, he finally got the Members Council to agree to the structural changes and when they had to vote to implement those changes – in a secret ballot, they chose not to do so.
The outcome – should Mthethwa do as he stated on Sunday morning, and invoke the powers available to him – will be catastrophic for the sport. The Proteas will no longer be South Africa’s team and much needed money from sponsors will disappear.
And it is all the fault of a section of the Members Council, who’ve pushed Mthethwa to finally make good on his threat.
The Star