Former Proteas all-rounder Vernon Philander is reportedly taking legal action against Cricket South Africa.
According to IOL, Philander’s dispute with CSA is allegedly related to contracts and lack of payments for long service.
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What Philander said
“It was during the 2018 tour of Sri Lanka, when Cricket SA were very concerned about players leaving the national team and taking up Kolpak contracts in England,” Philander told IOL.
“We had just lost a host of bowlers like Kyle Abbott, Marchant de Lange, Wayne Parnell to Kolpak and Morne Morkel also retired to join Surrey.
“CSA were worried about losing more and they were aware that I had plenty of offers from a number of English counties.
“It was at this stage that [CSA’s former acting director of cricket and head of pathways and development] Corrie van Zyl flew to Colombo to discuss my future with the Proteas.
“Firstly, my agent Arthur Turner should have been present in those meetings, but obviously wasn’t because we were in Sri Lanka.
“It was during these meetings that it was discussed that my contract would be upgraded if I remained eligible for the Proteas. After the meetings I immediately called Arthur and told him I was happy with the proposal and that I would continue playing for the Proteas in terms of the new agreements.
“I was paid the new amount for the next season, but not the following year. I was told that due to me not playing franchise cricket they could not pay me what was previously agreed upon.
“This has no bearing on my national contract. They presented their ‘ranking system’ which made no sense as I had actually gone up in the International Cricket Council Test rankings.”
Philander seeks help from SACA
Philander retired from international cricket in early 2020. He was then contracted by Somerset in English county cricket. That contract was later cancelled amid a lack of cricket during the coronavirus pandemic.
He was due to represent Western Province at provincial level during the 2021-22 domestic season in South Africa, but withdrew to be with the Pakistan coaching staff during the T20 World Cup.
Philander has engaged the the South African Cricketers’ Association for help.
SACA chief executive officer Andrew Breetzke said: “In negotiating the 2018 MOU agreement, we introduced a number of measures to ensure that we were able to retain our best players in the face of other playing opportunities around the world.
“Key to this was introducing ‘red-ball’ payments linked to ICC events – this was to compensate Proteas players who were not selected for the financially lucrative ICC events.
“Unfortunately, the initiative never materialised, due primarily to CSA’s financial challenges and the CSA turmoil of 2019, when individuals working on the initiative were suspended and dismissed.
“In so far as Vernon is in dispute on the issue of his contract negotiation with CSA, SACA were not a party to this negotiation and cannot therefore comment.”