A new T20 league that will be played in South Africa early next year will not have any racial transformation targets.
This was confirmed by the CEO of Cricket South Africa (CSA), Pholetsi Moseki.
South African professional cricket teams, including the national side, have had various ‘transformation’ targets over the years, requiring sides to have a certain number of players of colour in their team XIs. These targets have been enforced with various degrees of harshness over the years.
However, this will not be the case with this new league.
Six franchises have been confirmed around the country, all being snapped up by owners who already have teams which play in the Indian Premier League, by far the richest cricket league in the world, and one of the richest sports leagues on the planet.
It is believed that the new league will net CSA a profit of US$30 million over the next ten years, a very welcome windfall for the sport in South Africa, which has suffered from mismanagement and financial issues in recent years.
According to News24, two Proteas-capped players, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that they were concerned that there would be no transformation targets for the league, and that this would reduce opportunities for black players.
These concerns were dismissed by Moseki who said that nature of the league and the number of South African players that would participate in the league meant that there would be many opportunities for black players.
‘There will be transformed teams anyway and we felt it won’t be necessary for us to stipulate in that sense. We are comfortable with that purely because of the numbers required,’ Moseki said.