MUMBAI: SuperSport, South Africa’s top sports broadcaster, has put cold water to the prospects of Cricket South Africa (CSA) reviving its much-delayed Twenty20 league after it has rejected the offer of holding a 49% stake in it as part of an equity deal.
However, it remains open to broadcasting the competition should it see the light of day.
As a result, the board has no investor for the competition on board. It seems to have succumbed to the pressure created by team owners of the now-scrapped Global T20 League as they had threatened legal action against them following heated meetings in Mumbai and Dubai last month with CSA CEO, Thabang Moroe.
“This is unfortunate,” said SuperSport CEO Gideon Khobane.
“We reached an in-principle agreement with CSA regarding co-ownership of this event in June this year. Since then, the parties have been engaged in amicable discussions regarding the details of the proposed relationship,” Khobane stated.
“We have used our best endeavours to reach consensus with CSA around that shareholding model, but this has unfortunately not happened. The discussions on the in-principle shareholding agreement terminated on 23 July 2018.”
“We have therefore decided to discontinue negotiations about shareholding. We are, however, engaged in constructive discussions with CSA regarding the broadcast of the event,” concluded Khobane.
