Cricket

CSA hit by further threat of legal action

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Thabang Moroe

Cricket South Africa (CSA) is facing a busy time in court as T20 Global League (GLT20) franchise owners fight for ‘their rights’.

Having cancelled the original T20 Global League (GLT20) 20-over tournament, only to replace it with a new league (co-owned by SuperSport), disgruntled franchise owners are kicking up a fuss and threatening legal action against CSA.

Ajay Sethi, chairman of Dubai’s Channel Two, owners of The Nelson Mandela Bay Stars franchise, told ESPNcricinfo that they expect CSA to either keep all the original owners in place for the new league or else they should pay those owners out for their ‘future profits and damages’.

The Port Elizabeth-based Stars and the Durban Qalanders are both talking in the media about taking legal action.

‘CSA has no right to damage our credibility. Either they should let the owners or IMG [the International Management Group] run the league‚ or pay us projected profits and damages. They can’t get away with everything,’ Sethi told TimesLIVE.

In a strongly worded statement by Sethi, he said: ‘We were very happy that the SuperSport deal was the way forward for all of us‚ but it was shocking to hear that CSA had another agenda by putting owners out of the league.

‘CSA seems to have a different plan to remove the owners and then do the media deal. This is totally unethical and no federation will do that in any part of the world. We would like to know how can SuperSport sign the deal immediately after the termination letter was sent to us?

‘We have made it very clear to CSA that if they don’t give a definite date for the new league‚ the deposit would be refunded. Moreover‚ we clearly mentioned to them that our rights remain as owners. CSA didn’t respond; that meant they had accepted our mail.

‘We feel that they terminated the CEO to manipulate the process‚’ added Sethi. ‘There is no trust left on any federation of sports in South Africa‚ rugby‚ soccer‚ etc … all. Who can we trust? Foreign investment of 500-million was wasted. This kind of behavior has given a wrong message to foreign investors in any business field.’

CSA confirmed last week that they had refunded deposits to all owners, with the exception of the Durban Qalanders, who did not provide CSA with their banking details as they were busy negotiating for the reimbursement of additional expenses they had incurred.

A number of other franchise owners are also extremely unhappy with the current situation, which adds additional pressure on CSA, who have not yet released any details about the format and structure of the tournament, which starts in November and will end in December.

Photo: Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix