The Western Province Cricket Association board have won an arbitration case against Cricket South Africa.
Mid-October 2019 saw the WPCA file an urgent application against CSA to have September’s suspension overturned, after step-in rights had been exercised.
CSA claimed the WPCA board were conducting business under distressed conditions in relation to, among others, administration, governance and financial affairs. CSA suspended the WPCA board and appointed professor Andre Odendaal administrator.
“My lawyers have just called me and told me we have won the arbitration with costs‚” WPCA president Nic Kock told TimesLIVE this week.
The entire WPCA board, headed by Kock, will soon be reinstated.
CSA, who will be held to account for the financial costs accrued during the arbitration, might challenge the decision to reinstate Kock and colleagues, though.
The WPCA had reportedly argued CSA had “no right or entitlement to exercise step-in rights over a self-standing voluntary association.”
The WPCA, too, claimed CSA did not allow a hearing before taking the decision, which was based on incorrect information, to suspend the board.
Cricket South Africa’s ‘blue flag’ clubs
Meanwhile, Tygerberg Cricket Club and the University of the Western Cape Cricket Club are among the 20 clubs afforded ‘blue flag’ status by CSA this week.
Tygerberg Cricket Club and the University of the Western Cape Cricket Club are the only WPCA representatives among the 20.
“The aim of the blue-flag programme is to assess how all our clubs are performing in terms of a measurement tool called the clubs quality index,” said CSA acting manager of cricket pathways Edward Khoza.
“It gives recognition to clubs who are achieving CSA’s aims and objectives in terms of the presidential plan.”