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Change Your Life! |
South Africans wonder: How deep does cricket corruption go? |
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News |
The UCB kicked Cronje, the team captain, off the squad Tuesday and said he confessed to taking a bookie's payoff, which Cronje later denied. President Thabo Mbeki, meanwhile, will appoint a judicial commission of inquiry into the scandal, angry with me because I have not received their money, you know." In his statement Tuesday, Cronje acknowledged he had mentioned names of other players but added: "I never spoke to a single player about throwing a match." However, the statement ducks whether Cronje had spoken to other players about adjusting their performances to satisfy a bookie's betting needs, or affecting the overall score for point-spread betting. Indian police have charged Cronje, Gibbs, Strydom and another player, Nicky Boje, with fraud, conspiracy and deceiving and defrauding paying spectators. Williams was injured and did not play in the game the phone conversation apparently referred to. In the tape excerpts, Cronje simply says Boje is playing in the upcoming match. Former South African Captain Kepler Wessels on Wednesday expressed suspicions that Cronje is not the sole guilty player on the team. Wessels told a radio talk show that one crooked player could not determine the outcome of a match or how other players perform, unless those other players are also involved in a conspiracy. Wessels called for a transparent full-fledged inquiry into possible corruption of South Africa's national cricket team. UCB managing director Ali Bacher told a press conference Tuesday that Cronje had confessed to him in a predawn phone call that he had taken 10,000 to 15,000 dollars of a bookie's money. Cronje later said in his statement, however, that "I never received any financial rewards." The three other players who have been charged with Cronje in India - and who all stand to be extradited for trial there - have said they are innocent. Bacher said in a radio interview Wednesday that a huge illegal gambling industry exists on the Indian subcontinent, with millions of dollars bet on a single cricket match. Bacher earlier blamed bookies for having continually pestered Cronje. Wessels ridiculed Bacher's attempt to shift blame from Cronje to the bookies, saying all sorts of people pester sports stars and that they should be either ignored or a complaint lodged with regulatory officials. Johannesburg-area newspapers reacted to the scandal with shock and dismay. "Oh Hansie," said a banner headline in The Citizen, above a photo of a stunned looking Cronje. "Hansie: a nation betrayed," declared another banner headline in The Star. Columnist Michael Owen-Smith wrote in The Star that South Africans "are bound to start asking questions about every match their national team has lost in recent years, starting with its elimination from the World Cup. South Africa was eliminated during the semifinals against Australia last year when Gibbs - named by Indian police as one of the conspirators - dropped an easy catch. However, Gibbs also put in a tremendous performance that day, scoring a century. |
