Misplaced trust and secrecy led to the downfall of the inaugural Global League T20 series.
Thabang Moroe, the acting CEO of Cricket South Africa, said in a briefing that the board ‘took its trust and placed it in the hands of a few individuals. Not all the information that the board needed to have in order for the board to be comfortable enough to continue with this league. That information wasn’t forthcoming and some of it is still not forthcoming.’
No names were mentioned, but the board had previously pointed out that it could no longer work with the former CEO, Haroon Lorgat, the principal driver of the new league.
Moroe said the board ‘does not believe it was fully appraised’ of Lorgat’s activities, and there is a possibility of further investigation.
The bottom line is that when the board investigated the feasibility of the league, which was due to start on 3 November, it came to the conclusion that the losses would be too great. No broadcast deal had been signed, and the anticipated revenue was way below an acceptable level.
‘What has changed is numbers. We looked at our model and we are still very confident with it. But for the model to work, it needs to have money supporting it. That money cannot be money coming from CSA alone,’ Moroe said.
‘If you have a model that says, I need x-amount of money coming from broadcasters, x-amount coming from sponsorship, then if any of it changes, automatically it forces you to go back and have a look at your model. You can’t keep reworking your model to accommodate where CSA is hurting. It becomes reckless trading as far as the board is concerned. The model itself is fine. But it needs to be supported by money coming in from outside CSA.
‘If you look at the numbers that have been put in front of us in terms of broadcast and sponsorship deals, we were going to make losses of between US$6-8-million every year for the next five years. It’s a no-brainer, if you look at numbers.’
Moroe admitted to a failure of the board’s checks and balances and said it was working to gather all the information needed to understand the inner working of its own tournament.
The South African Cricketers’ Association has called for CSA to conduct an independent review into what transpired.
Photo: Lee Warren/Gallo Images
