SA phone-taps, and minister wants meeting
By Paul Martin -- Johannesburg.
South Africa's Sports Minister Ncgonde Balfour says he is inviting all the
sports ministers from cricket-Test-match cricket-playing countries to a summit
get-together on how to combat corruption in the game.
He was speaking as retired judge-president Edwin King issued a startling
second interim report into 'match-fixing and related matters'. Developing ideas
first submitted to the commission by members of the public, King supported
imposing severe curbs on players and subjecting them to random lie-detector tests.
He wants their cell-phones tapped, the public kept away from their hotels, and the
press kept away except when they have explicit permission from the South African
UnitedCricket Board (UCB).
King told a news conference he did not consider any of this to be a
violation of the players' constitutional rights to freedom of expression.
Significantly, he implied (though did not explicitly state) that the UCB
had failed to protect the players from corrupting influences, especially when they were
away on tour.
The Commissioner used the ringing phrase that "without the confidence of
the public,the game is nothing".
It remains to be seen if the public has full confidence, though, in the
Commission itself. It has had delay after delay in resuming operations. Now King has
had another court reverse (the first being when Live Africa Network News forced him to
allow broadcasting of the proceedings).
This time the ex-captain Hansie Cronje has wrung
a key concession from the ex-judge.Cronje had been summoned to appear on the 25th January, the day the
hearings resume. No-one had apparently bothered to check if Cronje's legal team was
available on that date.
Cronje's lawyers said they had other engagements at that time and Cronje
could not afford the money to hire a new legal team. he pointed out that he was in
effect unemployed.
King then accepted he would not call Cronje until his legal team were
available, which is three weeks later than the scheduled starting date. In the interim King
will only call witnesses who did not impinge on Cronje's alleged involvement in
match-fixing.
It may not be a huge victory, but it means Cronje can remain silent for an
extra three weeks.
Does it perhaps show again a degree of incompetence by the King
Commission?In the meantime Cronje may still get the UCB to climb down from its life
ban on Cronje -- partly because it does not specify just how much distance has to
be placed between Cronje and cricket ("can he come and watch a Test-match as a
spectator?",asks his lawyer Leslie Sackstein), and partly because the UCB blundered by
not first calling Cronje to give his defence before passing their sentence.
Does that show incompetence from the UCB?
In both cases: You bet.
Mail Cricket Editor