South Africa Cricketers’ Association ‘very surprised’ by CSA’s suspensions over non-payment of fees

The South Africa Cricketers’ Association on Thursday, in a statement, denied dealing with the three suspended officials over non-payment of player fees from the Mzansi Super League 2018.

Cricket South Africa had provisionally suspended three of its top-ranking officials for not fulfilling their duties after allegation of non-payment of player fees from the Mzansi Super League arrangement 2018. The suspended employees are interim director of cricket Corrie van Zyl, chief operating officer Naasei Appiah, and commercial manager Clive Eksteen.

“We are very surprised that Naasei Appiah, Corrie van Zyl and Clive Eksteen have been suspended in relation to allegations surrounding CSA’s non-compliance with the 2018 MSL commercial agreement,” said SACA’s chief executive Tony Irish.

“SACA didn’t deal with Appiah on this issue and in its dealings with Van Zyl and Eksteen over many months they both expressed a strong desire to resolve the payment issue, but it eventually became clear that higher approval to do so was necessary.”

“We think it’s highly unlikely that CSA’s chief executive, Thabang Moroe, would not have been aware of this ongoing issue. He was undoubtedly aware of payment obligations as he had signed the agreement.”

The statement added, “In November 2018, SACA and CSA signed a commercial rights agreement relating to the granting of player commercial rights for use in the 2018 MSL. This was signed by the chief executives of both organisations. The agreement provided for full payment of amounts due to players for these rights by December 24, 2018. Despite ten months of engagement with CSA the payment due to the players, and to be paid via the SACA Players Trust, remained outstanding.

“SACA also believes that CSA’s persistent refusal to comply with the 2018 MSL agreement for such a long period was simply part of a much wider, systematic attempt to marginalise SACA and the role that it plays in protecting the collective interests of the players. SACA is a fully recognised players association representing every professional cricketer in South Africa and the Players Trust holds all of the players commercial rights. It is not a ‘player intermediary’ as suggested by CSA.”

The matter was only eventually settled on October 29, 2019 and a 2019 MSL commercial agreement was eventually signed. Players were due to do commercial activations to promote the 2019 MSL on October 30, 2019.

“SACA believes that the 2018 MSL dispute and the signature of the 2019 MSL commercial agreement were only resolved because of the impending player commercial activations scheduled to take place on 30 October 2019,” said Irish. “In the absence of an agreement CSA would not have had the rights to use the players in the activations.”