NEWSFormer South Africa captain Graeme Smith said his country will welcome back former Kolpak players willing to be part of the domestic structure as he sees it as a possible way to provide more depth to the national team.
Kolpak registrations, which give sportsmen from countries with associate trade agreements with the European Union the same rights as EU workers, are set to be terminated at the end of 2020 following the UK's exit from the EU.
Dozens of South African cricketers have signed lucrative contracts with county cricket sides over the years but this automatically disqualifies them from playing for the national team.
"With Kolpak coming to an end, I guess the willingness is always to have our best players in the system. It is up to the players to come back into the system and to make decisions on their careers," Smith, who was recently appointed as Director of Cricket by his Board, said.
"From our perspective, we want to encourage all our best players to play here domestically, and then give themselves the opportunity to be selected for the national side," he was quoted as saying in 'Sky Sports'.
Kyle Abbott, Wayne Parnell, Rilee Roussow and Duanne Olivier are among the more prominent names to have taken Kolpak deals over the years, while Dane Paterson, who played two Tests against England in January, is the latest to do so.
"We don't ever want to exclude players from being part of our system and we understand that the landscape of the world game is very different now to what it was," Smith said.
"Open minds and how we look at these things is going to be key to how we keep our best players how we keep them motivated and in our game."
We are still safe, but future is uncertain, says CSA CEO Faul
Sporting bodies and leagues across the globe might have felt the impact of COVID-19 but Cricket South Africa has not yet reached a position of financial vulnerability due to the pandemic, CSA CEO Jacques Faul claimed.
While Faul maintained that CSA is still safe, he admitted that the future looks uncertain.
He, however, said as of now the financial condition of CSA is stable enough to do away with salary cuts of its players and staffs.
"At this stage there is no indication for us and we haven't lost income. Everybody's financial position is a bit different I think money available for players will be less probably not in the forthcoming season but the season after," Faul was quoted as saying by timeslive.co.za.
"Historic rights are sold that gets paid over a certain period of time. Ours were sold for eight years so there is still money that flows into your account.
"(But) if your future content doesn't take place then your money gets cut. At this stage we are monitoring but we can't make the decision to cut salaries when we haven't experienced the loss yet. That will be an irresponsible thing to do at this stage."
The official said at the moment CSA is safe but can't give a future guarantee.
"For now we don't have to panic but it is not to say that it will not happen in future. It also depends on the makeup of your income streams sometimes it is also a very good position to qualify for government aid," Faul said
"To give you a good example if we lose out on the Indian content that may trigger it but it hasn't happened."
CSA suffered a financial blow when the limited overs tour of India was cut short last month with two ODIs in Lucknow and Kolkata being cancelled because of the pandemic after the series opener was washed out in Dharamsala.
With COVID-19 wreaking havoc across the globe, South Africa's limited overs tour to Sri Lanka in June was postponed on Monday due to the global health crisis with uncertainty looming large over the tour to the West Indies in July.
Faul said CSA has already formed a committee to plan out various strategies post COVID-19.
"We are starting to roll out post COVID-19 lockdown scenarios and how to deal with the financial impact and we have established a scenario planning committee to look into it " he said.
"There are certain things we can do immediately. There is a low level of predictability we are doing benchmarking and using the other three pillars of our planning.
"Our world will be affected by the world economy where predictions are not good. Our funding model is based on incoming tours and the ability of our sponsors to service certain agreements. We hope to have more in terms of strategy in the next two weeks but we have determined certain milestones and dates where we can assess."
Faul said the CSA has already devised a structured plan and worked out scenarios of financial vulnerability in certain areas.
Follow Us