Cricket South Africa is to call on the International Cricket Council (ICC) to implement tough preventative and remedial measures to combat racial abuse from spectators, including life-time bans.
This follows the report by India’s solicitor general, Goolam Vahanvati, who was appointed by the ICC to conduct an inquiry following a complaint by Cricket South Africa that some of its players were repeatedly racially abused by spectators during the recent tour of Australia.
Gerald Majola, Cricket South Africa’s CEO, said today: ”We have not studied the full report, but judging from the comments made by the ICC CEO, Malcolm Speed, the report confirms the occurrence of racial abuse directed at some of our players by spectators in Australia.
”Mr Speed says that Mr Vahanvati has also found that it would be wrong to attribute racial abuse to only expatriates living in Australia. Mr Speed said that it was found that the abuse was premeditated, coordinated and calculated to get after players.
”This justifies statements made on this issue by our team management, and fully justifies our official complaint to the ICC. Racialism cannot be allowed to raise its ugly head in sport, and the use of it by some Australian spectators to get at opponents is serious in the extreme.
”Mr Speed is to appoint a committee comprising himself, Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland and myself to discuss recommendations for change to the ICC anti-racism policy next month.
”The report has confirmed our view that the ICC must add tough preventative and remedial measures to its policy in order to stamp racialism out of cricket. As far as spectators are concerned, we are going to recommend that the ICC adopts our security measures at matches under its jurisdiction.
”Our measures include placing extra security personnel near players fielding on the boundary, who were the main targets in Australia. Our security officials have been instructed to quickly identify culprits, expel them from the ground, charge them criminally at the nearest police station, photograph them, and then ban them for life.
”We in South Africa take racism very seriously because of our history. We know how dangerous it is to let it grow, and we simply cannot allow it to gain a foothold in cricket.
”We are grateful to the ICC for its prompt handling of this matter, and we are confident that tough measures will now follow.” — Sapa