Cricket South Africa independent board chairperson Iqbal Khan has resigned with immediate effect.
His decision has come after CSA chief executive officer Thabang Moroe revoked the media accreditation of several outspoken cricket journalists. The accreditation has since been reinstated and Moroe has apologised.
Also see: Bacher suggests Moroe resigns
CSA’s director of cricket role, meanwhile, remains vacant despite formal interest from former captain Graeme Smith. CSA, too, remains locked in a legal battle with the South African Cricketers’ Association.
In a letter to CSA president Chris Nenzani, Khan listed several reasons for his resignation, namely:
- ‘Moroe’s blaming communications head Thami Mthembu for miscommunication or non-effective communication with the media when it was Moroe who was ultimately responsible for such communication;
- ‘CSA not paying the SA Cricketers’ Association a contractual amount in terms of a key stakeholder contract and the blame therefore was placed with the three suspended officials [chief operating officer Naasei Appiah, sales and sponsorship head Clive Eksteen and acting director of cricket Corrie van Zyl] despite the contract being signed by Moroe;
- ‘Several resignations in the CSA office due to what they say is a legally toxic environment;
- ‘Widespread credit card abuse in the office;
- ‘Hastily organising a press conference this week then cancelling it at the last minute;
- ‘Very selective communication with Saca and a failure to engage them in terms of the CSA collective agreement with Saca;
- ‘The mishandling of the director of cricket issue, and
- ‘Bringing CSA into disrepute.’
Earlier this week, professor Shirley Zinn resigned as an independent director of the CSA board as well.
She cited problems with CSA’s ‘principles of corporate governance’ for the resignation.
‘There are a lot of issues‚ some of them are being fixed‚ but one of them is the relationship with Saca‚ the accreditation of journalists being withdrawn‚ which is something that I thought was an appalling approach in terms of dealing with journalists,’ said Zinn.
‘I was absolutely shocked to see that and how that was authorised from a governance perspective in terms of who decided that that was the best step to follow.
‘The Graeme story in the Sunday Times was completely out of line and in terms of the accreditation issue‚ I heard it in the media and no one communicated that to me. If that happened‚ I certainly wasn’t on the list of the people who were spoken to about the matter.
‘I was shocked and then I heard the Thabang radio interview on Monday. I can’t describe to you how worrying it was in terms of how he made that call.
‘Those two issues were the straw that broke the camel’s back. They finished me off and I put pen to paper on Monday. I was totally horrified to find out that these things happened and I wasn’t going to stand by and look the other way.’
Photo: Gallo Images
