Publications
Partners
Cape Town - Cricket South Africa (CSA) has reached another stumbling block in its efforts to launch its ground-breaking T20 League.
Originally called the T20 Global League, the tournament was scrapped just weeks before it was due to be launched at the end of 2017 when the absence of a broadcast sponsor saw the CSA board pull the plug.
This year, under new leadership, CSA has gone forward with plans to re-launch.
The tournament will have a name change, will be jointly-owned by CSA and broadcasters SuperSport and will feature six franchises as opposed to eight.
One of the major issues, however, is that at least four of the original franchise owners from the failed 2017 product have threatened legal action against CSA, who cannot guarantee that they will be team owners in the new-look 2018 edition.
To make matters worse, government is now getting involved too.
According to Cricinfo's Firdose Moonda, South African sports minister Tokozile Xasa has been asked to consider issuing a moratorium that would stop the board from taking any further developments without first consulting government.
The request to the sports minister came from the Democratic Alliance's Darren Bergman.
"While I do not believe that politicians should interfere in the running of sports and that we are best placed to play a supportive role, I am concerned that Cricket SA has the potential to risk major reputational and financial loss both to the sports as well as to the players and sponsors. This could have a negative impact locally and internationally," Cricinfo quote Bergman as saying in a letter to Xasa.
