Row over Mandela 'support' for Cronje
By Paul Martin Cainer in Johannesburg
A major row in South Africa is brewing over the intervention of former South African
president Nelson Mandela in the cricket match-fixing affair. Cricket bosses
in particular are privately expressing irritation that he met ex-captain Hansie
Cronje
near his cape coastal home on Friday and bizzarely told him he could still be a
role model.
Cronje was disgraced in a match-fixing scandal that cost him the captaincy of
the national side.
"I am saying to him, without excusing in any way what he has done if the
allegations are proven to be right, that he can be a role model and turn this tragedy into
triumph," Mr Mandela told reporters.
He added that Cronje should have confessed all when the allegations of
match-fixing surfaced in April and should be punished if he was found guilty of wrongdoing by
the commission probing the scandal.
The 82-year-old statesman and former first lady Graca Machel spent an hour with
Cronje and his wife Bertha at their home at a luxury golf resort near George on
the south coast.
Mandela said he has known Cronje, who was one the country's most popular
sportsmen before the scandal broke, for long and would not treat him like a
leper.
But he insisted that the visit, which took place at Cronje's request, was not
an attempt to sway the outcome of the King Commission's inquiry into match-fixing
in South African cricket.
Cricket officials have tried to lay the blame for the scandal almost exclusively
at Cronje's door, and were considered lenient with batting star Herschelle Gibbs
and aspirant pace bowler Henry Williams, both of whom admitted agreeing to bribes
for under-performing. Gibbs can resume his international career from January 1
2000.
Cronje says he has retired from the game.
"Mandela is a great man," says one official. "But by talking in this way he
gives the impression that Cronje can return to cricket as player or administrator. That
is very dangerous to South Africa's attempts to be seen as tough on corruption in
cricket."
Cronje admitted in June to the King Commission, often in tearful testimony, that he
received thousands of dollars from gamblers and bookmakers on five separate
occasions between 1996 and 2000.
He also confessed that he offered teammates money in exchange for
under performing in Test matches.
The commission will resume its hearings into the matter in November and is
likely to make recommendations to the government by early December, according to Sports
Minister Ngconde Balfour.
Mail Cricket Editor