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Cape Town - The South African Cricketers' Association (SACA) has lodged another issue with Cricket South Africa (CSA) in relation to alleged unlawful use of player commercial rights.
In November 2018, SACA and CSA had signed a commercial rights agreement relating to the granting of player commercial rights in the 2018 Mzansi Super League (MSL).
According to the agreement, a fee of R2.5 million was due to be paid by CSA to the Players Trust by December 24 last year - and that did not happen.
That money was eventually paid over at the end of last month in a saga that resulted in the suspensions of Corrie van Zyl, Naasei Appiah and Clive Eksteen from the organisation.
On Wednesday, however, SACA released a statement raising fresh concerns over player rights that are directly related to this year's MSL.
The statement added that, because of the current state of CSA and its leadership, SACA and the country's professional players would meet on Friday to consider some form of protest action against the current administration.
SACA chief executive Tony Irish commented on the matter via a press statement:
"Unfortunately SACA has again had to commence a formal process against CSA in respect of yet another situation in which the commercial rights of players in the MSL have been ignored.
"CSA has used, and allowed the use of, the names and images of players in association with a fantasy league game related to MSL without any rights to do so and despite SACA having relaying to CSA that such use is unlawful.
"The situation has continued despite our concerns raised on repeated occasions, leaving us little option but to take formal steps.
"SACA has also, and simply as a precaution, requested CSA to obtain clearance from its anti-corruption unit to ensure that this use of players in a pay-to-play game does not in any way constitute an association of the players with gambling, or encouragement of betting practices, which are not permitted under CSA’s anti-corruption code. As far as we know this request has been ignored by CSA.
"This is yet another instance, in a growing line of instances, where CSA has flagrantly disregarded our agreements and, over the last week or so, failed to address SACA’s resulting concerns. We now feel that enough is enough.
"SACA has called a meeting of its Players Executive Committee and its Management Board for Friday December 6. At this meeting we will again be discussing the manner in which SACA and the players are being treated by CSA.
"This discussion is likely to include the possibility of the players taking some form of industrial, or protest, action.
"SACA has always considered strike, and other similar forms of industrial action, to be a very last resort and in SACA’s 17 years of dealing with CSA to date not one day of cricket has ever been lost to industrial action.
"However, things have now reached a stage where we must ask what SACA, and the players, are expected to do when the leadership of CSA, both operationally and on its Board, continues to ignore our legitimate concerns and refuses to acknowledge the players as key stakeholders in the game."
