IPL II will benefit CSA for a decade: Majola

Embattled Cricket South Africa CEO Gerald Majola, who is facing allegations of pocketing irregular IPL bonuses, claims hosting the event in Johannesburg two years ago would continue to benefit CSA for a decade more.

Majola is currently at the centre of an inquiry instituted by Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula following almost two years of wrangling at CSA after Majola paid himself and other senior staff huge IPL bonuses without informing the board.

Nobody could have arranged the IPL second edition in just three weeks, Majola told a weekly on Sunday.

"We had three weeks to get the tournament and arrange everything and I still believe no other organisation would have got it right," Majola told the Afrikaans weekly Rapport.

Majola and former IPL supremo Lalit Modi jointly announced that IPL II would be played in South Africa due to security concerns around elections in India at the time.

England was also being considered as a possible venue before the announcement.

"(IPL II) was the most successful of all the IPL tournaments so far and CSA will still pluck the fruits from it for 10 years more," Majola said.

But observers are asking what these fruits are, amid growing concern that CSA earnings are not being ploughed back into developmental cricket at grassroots level while executives pay themselves huge bonuses.

"Majola should tell the inquiry exactly where these fruits are, so that we can also pluck some of them, because we are certainly not getting any," said a disgruntled member of the Lenasia Cricket Association, who preferred not to be named for fear of victimisation.

He cited the example of the provincial CSA affiliate Gauteng Cricket Board, from whom international games at the Wanderers were taken away when it queried about the contract between CSA and the IPL. PTI FH PM

Ali Bacher is a liar: Majola

Former South African cricket supremo Ali Bacher has been labelled a 'liar' by CSA CEO Gerald Majola for denying receiving a five million rands bonus after the country's hosting of the 2003 World Cup.

Bacher had denied the allegation made by Majola at the inquiry into the financial affairs of CSA instituted by Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula.

"Bacher is lying," Majola told the Afrikaans weekly Rapport after Bacher said in a radio interview that he had received five million rands as a supplement to his pension fund.

"Bacher projects himself as a Samaritan, but he is everything except that," Majola said.

"He has also arranged that all his medical costs be paid by CSA until the day he breathes his last," he added.

In reaction, Bacher told the weekly Majola's 'liar' allegation was "disappointing.

"I have nothing to hide and also do not want to become engaged in mud-slinging," Bacher said.

"When I started working in 1981 as a cricket administrator, there was nothing like a pension fund. That is why the directors of the World Cup decided unanimously after the final to set this right.

Majola was himself at that meeting and several others will confirm that. If that did not happen, I would have had to continue working for the rest of my life just to survive," Bacher said.

Bacher indicated that he would not mind testifying in front of the three-man inquiry committee when it resumes hearings in January.