Last Updated on 5 years by Charbel Coorey

The South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) has assumed total control over cricketing activities in the country. The Olympic body has instructed Cricket South Africa (CSA) along with its other top executive officers such as Kugandrie Govender (acting CEO), Thamie Mthembu (CCO) and Welsh Gwaza (company secretary) to step aside from their respective roles on charges of bringing cricket into disrepute due to “many instances of maladministration and malpractice.”

Furthermore, this leads one to ponder upon whether these developments breach the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) rules against government interference. If it does, then the national team could be prohibited from participating in the sport internationally too. The SASCOC will formulate an investigative group to probe into the occurrence and activities of the CSA. The panel is likely to submit a report post their findings within a month, which will arguably decide the fate of the CSA going ahead.

In December last year, the board’s former CEO Thabang Moore was suspended due to a forensic report that disclosed “acts of serious misconduct.” The association’s dubious actions from thereon have cast doubts over its integrity. They did not make the report public, nor was it made available for SASCOC. Even the 14 provincial presidents that comprise the Members’ Council of the CSA were made to sign non-disclosure agreements before getting their hands on the report.

According to the reports in CricBuzz, SASCOC has attempted to address these issues in two meetings with the CSA board: one was exploratory, and the other failed to take place mainly because of the fact that CSA failed to make the… forensic report available to the SASCOC board despite promises and undertakings by CSA to do so. CSA is in receipt of our letter which records that the board’s decision to make the said report available only on a limited basis to the president and board members of SASCOC, is wholly unreasonable and irrational given the apparent nature and scope of the report.

Written by Anjali Jha. Follow Anjali on Twitter today.