“Team work is needed both on and off the field of play. The new Cricket SA board cannot be tap-dancing around the sticky issues of discrimination, racism and transformation, avoid tackling them for a long time, hoping they will redress themselves.“
South Africa’s one week of madness fleetingly diverted people’s attention from cringeworthy revelations of the race-based privileges and packages afforded to cricket players. But as far as things in South Africa go, as the semblance of normalcy is returning, the matter of cricket’s disrepute is now back in the limelight, being dissected at length during talk radio phone-in programmes.
The ongoing inquest into the state of cricket, dubbed Social Justice Nation-building project, has opened a can of worms, revealing glaring disparities in privileges, from remuneration to conditions of employment, amongst cricketers of different racial groups. If ever there had been doubts, this vindicates those who had been relentlessly calling for urgent wholesale reforms in cricket’s corporate governance statues to enable feasible and tangible transformation in the sport’s administration.
Had the information tendered been from third parties relaying what would claim to be privy from ‘reliable’ sources, it could have been summarily dismissed as hearsay, but the witnesses are the real horse’s mouth’.
Former Cricket South Africa’s director, Dr Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, who was the first witness to take to the stand on the first day of the SJN public hearings, presented information about inexplicable salary differences. Lamentably, Kula-Ameyaw disclosed the following in the document titled “Salary differentials Presentation”: White cricketers earn 50% or R77‚000 more than coloured players; Indians 32% or R51‚000 less than whites and Africans 26% or R42‚000 less than their white counterparts. She claimed the document was shared with the previous CSA board in August last year.
“Some people are earning half of what their colleagues are earning. he long and short of this‚ which is shocking‚ is that the discrimination and racism is systematic and entrenched.” said Kula-Ameyaw,under oath and also swearing to provide nothing but the truth in an affidavit.
On his part, Author and cricket historian, Prof Andre Odendaal‚ bemoaned the lack of transformation, saying it was the reason cricket is still seen as ‘an elite sport’ despite enjoying wide grassroots support.
The abovementioned and other astonishing information presented at the commission puts paid – no pun intended – to all claims by administrators of a sporting code that prides itself in uniting South Africans from diverse backgrounds. Hopefully, cricket will put its house in order and ensure that issues do not spill over to the field and corrode player’s morale in test cricket an area where the Proteas, men and women’s team excel. SJN transformation ombuds advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza‚, the SJN Chair, suggested that evidence revealed at the camp may indicate why South Africa Squads have failed to win at previous World Cups as they were never united enough to do so.
Doubtless, team work is needed both on and off the field of play. Hence, the new CSA board cannot be tap-dancing around the sticky issues of discrimination, racism and transformation, avoid tackling them for a long time, hoping they will redress themselves. Atthe ongoing hearing, mounting evidence is peddling a compelling business case for the board to effect changes to ensure that every aspect of the game facilitates the implementation of the objectives of transformation.
What has been stalling the process has been political will. To be regarded as genuinely committed to uniting the nation, the cricket board must bat for parity in player privileges, as the old, but relevant chestnut goes, ‘Charity begins at home”.
Dubbed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of cricket, Social Justice Nation-building project has been established to investigate discrimination‚ racism and transformation within the organisation.
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