Sascoc officially rejects majority independent board at Cricket SA

09 May 2021 - 14:22 By tiisetso malepa
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Sascoc president Barry Hendricks says the organisation's membership has rejected a majority independent board at Cricket South Africa at the general council meeting on Saturday May 8 2021.
Sascoc president Barry Hendricks says the organisation's membership has rejected a majority independent board at Cricket South Africa at the general council meeting on Saturday May 8 2021.
Image: Wessel Oosthuizen/Gallo Images

Cricket SA (CSA) are headed for yet another battle, this time with the controlling body for all sporting codes‚ Sascoc‚ over the controversial amendments of the memorandum of incorporation (MOI)‚ which serves as the cricket body’s constitution.

The SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee’s (Sascoc) general council‚ which is its highest decision-making body after the board‚ met on Saturday and one of the items on the agenda was the CSA saga.

The Sascoc council resolved to reject the amendments‚ which came into effect late last month. This means CSA and Sascoc are headed for a dispute as the cricket body is marching ahead with the passed amendments.

Sascoc president Barry Hendricks told TimesLIVE on Sunday that the general council’s resolution was unanimous.

“The resolution was we confirm our position that sports organisations must remain autonomous and government must not occur‚ and in the case of Cricket SA‚ we will further engage with our member to try to protect them by ensuring they adhere to the Sascoc constitution‚ as well as the policies of the IOC charter and our own constitution‚” said Hendricks.

The Sascoc president said all the member federations affiliated to them unanimously voted against the appointment of a majority independent board and an independent chairperson on a board of one its members.

“It was unanimous and there were no voices against, none whatsoever.”

TimesLIVE asked CSA for their reaction to Saturday’s Sascoc meeting and the resolution of the general council‚ which rejected a majority independent board and an independent chairperson‚ but had not responded at the time of publishing on Sunday afternoon.

Hendricks said Sascoc will set up a meeting with the CSA members council this week for further engagements.

“We will engage with Cricket SA again. We think it is important to try to get them to adopt the policy that the Sascoc principle is there will not be a majority independent board and an independent chairperson.

“We will be asking them for a meeting this week with their members' council.

“We will be putting a task team together to deal with them in a sense of having a dialogue with them‚ and we hope we can come to an amicable solution.

“We think we can find a solution to this matter.”

But Hendricks said whatever solution is reached should be in alignment with the Sascoc principles.

“We have not interrogated the exact solution that we can reach but the principle of independent election processes where the majority of members are elected members is the one key element for us.

“The position that independent directors are critical to any organisation‚ we acknowledge that‚ and that is why Sascoc brought in two specialist independent directors with skills in finance and legal fields.”

Sascoc and Hendricks have already warned CSA of the consequences of going ahead with the amended MOI‚ which calls for a majority independent board and an independent chairperson.

Hendricks‚ during the failed CSA special general meeting on April 17 which was called to adopt the amendments‚ said clause 11‚3‚1‚5 of the Sascoc constitution is clear.

The clause states that if a Sascoc member is on contravention of its membership compliance‚ Sascoc can suspend‚ fine and terminate the membership of any of their affiliated members.


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