CSA ship reaches ‘financial iceberg’ but it won’t sink
The embattled governing body again denies it's at loggerheads with Saca, the players union, over its austerity plans.
CSA Chief Executive Officer, Thabang Moroe during the CSA media briefing at CSA Head Office on April 12, 2019 in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Photo by Lefty Shivambu/Gallo Images)
Cricket South Africa (CSA) acknowledged they are facing a fiscal “iceberg” but said none of their financial problems pose the threat of bankruptcy and they will remain a healthy organisation for at least the next four years.
CSA last weekend announced a dramatic restructuring of domestic cricket, doing away with the franchise system, as the cornerstone of austerity measures, prompting speculation that the organisation was in in financial crisis.
“Our strategic plan has nothing to do with recovery, it’s just that we see an iceberg in front of us and we are slowly steering the ship away so we don’t hit it. Our finances remain strong, but we want to make sure they continue to be that way. Things are very tight though and the pressure is on. But that iceberg in front of us is just projected losses, and there is still value in our product for sponsors.
“We need to still go through the finer details of our competition structure and it is too early for exact figures. But it will not cost us more because those 12 teams taking part are funded by us already.
“We want to broaden the game and bring the SA A, SA U-19 and club teams more into the framework, but we still need to negotiate with Saca [South African Cricketers’ Association] in terms of numbers and values,” CSA chief executive Thabang Moroe said at a press conference at their headquarters.
Corrie van Zyl, the general manager of cricket, denied the claims of the players’ union that they had not been consulted about the considerable changes to their work environment.
“Saca have been involved in the whole process, I’ve sat personally with them and explained what we would like. In principle they agreed and have never given any indication that they oppose our plans.
They just said they need more understanding of the commercial and high-performance aspects. And they have had other interactions with us as part of the joint finance and cricket committees,” Van Zyl said.
The Mzansi Super League (MSL) is obviously a major drain on the finances of CSA, but Moroe said the future of the T20 competition was bright, with the teething problems of the first year a thing of the past.
“The MSL suffered about an R80 million loss and it is forecast over the next four years to make a loss of R209 million. But there is just a 1% increase in budget for this year, so we are running a very tight ship. Plus we believe we can renegotiate better contracts this time around. We just had to make sure we delivered a tournament last year, but we should now be in a better position,” Moroe said.
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