Gibbs' father threatens to sue South Africa and world's cricket chiefs

Paul Martin Cainer Southern Africa Correspondent for rediff.com

Sports Minister Ngconde Balfour says Herschelle Gibbs and Henry Williams's six months' bans from international cricket were neither too harsh nor too lenient.

But Gibbs's father Herman has told rediff.com that he would like to sue Hansie Cronje for corrupting his son and the United Cricket Board for failing to protect his son from match-fixing.

Balfour says he feels the sentences are fair. There were elements both of retribution -- the six months' ban from international cricket -- and of rehabilitation. But Herman Gibbs condemned the sentence passed on his son as "over-punishment".

In an exclusive interview, Herman Gibbs said his son wants to take both Cronje and the United Cricket Board to court, to recover some or all of the financial damages he has suffered. Herman Gibbs said the United Cricket Board, and especially the International Cricket Council, had known about match-fixing allegations for five or six years and had done little or nothing to protect the players from it.

Gibbs Snr. said lawyers acting for the players had met to discuss suing Cronje and the UCB, but no final decision had yet been taken.

Gibbs, aged 26, stands to lose lucrative sportswear and sports equipment contracts, as well as his touring and match fees since his ban, which was originally imposed from June 30. He has missed the three indoor matches against Australia, the Sri Lanka series, the triangular in Singapore, and will also now miss the New Zealand tour and some of the following series.

Herman Gibbs says he has told his son to be "like a boxer stepping back into the ring after a bad blow", and prove he is the best opening batsman and the best provincial cricketer in South Africa when the season begins in earnest here in November. Gibbs and Williams have not been excluded from provincial cricket.

He revealed that since Herschelle's tearful admission, at the King Commission, of accepting the offer of a bribe from Cronje to underperform, his son has suffered from bouts of depression.

"But our family is used to suffering tough hits and recovering," explained Herman Gibbs. He recalled that when Herschelle had been sent to a private, almost totally white, school in Cape Town, the Gibbs family were shunned by more radical sports organisations who opposed any contact with white-run sport, even at schools level. Herman Gibbs, by profession a sports reporter, says he was even barred from attending and reporting on events in mixed-race areas.

Herman Gibbs lashed out at the International Cricket Council for failing to control match-fixing years back. "The people running the ICC should all admit their failures and resign," Gibbs demanded. "They should hand over the sport to people who can really control things properly."

Paul Martin Cainer is CEO, Live Africa News Networks

The Betting Scandal: The full story

Mail your comments