Lifting of ZC suspension on the 8th

[TapsC]

Does ICC send money for the time we were suspended I wonder?
There are some fat cats there on 15-30k a month, if you multiply that by 4 months that’s at least half a million that’s going to the hierarchy. They’ll pay themselves way before the players, plus there’s some coke and buns to dish out for the people who played their part, hopefully they get cheated
They’re going to have a tough time dodging games because there’s an air of expectation and they’re under the spotlight for a bit, but they’ll manage to keep the game time to a minimum, watch and see, not one game more than necessary will be organized.

The crazy part of it all is that the ICC must know this is how much they get because they control the books. They were never going to help. I wonder how much other admins around the world get paid

Nobody would care if they were doing a good job, every sport has the same issue where there are fat rich suits making squillions off the back of talented young sportsmen (FIFA) but as long as the players are paid looked after and the game/team are successful the fans don’t care.

I challenge you to tell me one good thing ZC are doing right now, because I can’t see anything.

National men’s & women’s teams suck

No national academy or even a pathway

Under 19’s haven’t progressed past group stage in well over a decade

Best young talent going overseas

Domestic standard is pathetic

Domestic schedule is pathetic

Can’t afford to host matches at home (unless the opposition pay for it)

Haven’t played a Test in over 12 months

Haven’t hosted a Test in over 24 months ( likely to go well over 3 years)

Cant find other revenues to earn money from the game

Rely 100% on ICC funding

Can’t sell the broadcast rights for matches

School & club cricket standard is dropping & less matches being played

I could go on but surely that’s enough to say these pricks running the game don’t deserve to be in power let alone earning the type of money they are. They’ve been running the game into the ground for years mate I don’t know why you defend them.

I know you will never believe me but I dont support them overall. Only on 2 instances. 1 being I felt the players were to blame for the UAE loss because that was probably the best squad we have had in 5 years. 2 with the suspension I also felt it was handled the wrong way because the SRC didnt follow the 1 rule in African politics. You shoot to kill and leave nothing to chance.

What I can say they have done was save us from an earlier suspension when our debt got out of hand. We were screwed there. Although most of them were part of previous boards who created the debt so I cant give them full credit. Where the credit comes is they had to beg the GVT to save them and takeover the debt. It was a really close call. Most people dont know how close it was. This suspension is nothing compared what would have happened there

In terms of games this was a bad year but next year is action packed. I am afraid we are not ready for constant cricket but we got 3 months of no cricket if the FTP is follwed properly. Most of the games cant be cancelled either. The ODI league has saved this board in terms of fixtures. Netherlands India Pakistan Australia and Sri Lanka for 15 ODIs. Apparently Sri Lanka in January as well although not 100% confirmed. Bangladesh in March. Ireland in April. World T20 qualifiers again in October. Lets just take this as a bad year. We are talking close to 40 games. Its not a joke.

What we need is a serious domestic season over the next 3 months.

[Jemisi]

I would be happy with 50% of that optimism Taps, I hope you're right mate

[jaybro]

Not saying you support them but you defend them

I really can’t give them much credit for ‘saving the day’ the ICC pretty much gave them a take it or leave it offer and are drop feeding them money.

The point on hand though is that the current admin are on way too much money considering what a shit job they’re doing

[Googly]

Well most people conveniently blamed the coaching staff and they were sacked yet recent losses resulted in not one negative comment about the current coaching staff.

The rest of the people blamed Ervine for losing the game single handedly, not a word about the openers constantly failing. I rarely blame players, they’re out there doing their best. The only thing that annoys me is low percentage agricultural heaves or reverse sweeps.

I’ve still got a big problem with this loan. If this board were genuinely interested in solving our problems why have they not contested this loan????
Legally Metbank cannot hold ZC to foreign repayments. It is illegal!!! Why then are they continuing to pay it with precious usd when they could squash the loan at 1:20th of the value of it. It begs an answer.
A USD loan at 2% per month is probably usurous, has anyone even considered contesting it? When you can borrow at 2-5% per annum offshore there are grounds to investigate anyone signing a loan at 24%. And that c”%t is a director and shareholder of the lending bank!
And he’s facing other charges of theft and corruption
What happens if ZC reneged on the payments?
Metbank are a beleaguered bank, we don’t have 20 million dollars worth of assets (excluding directors cars ) so what would Metbank do? They’d have to go to court and get a judgement to garnishee the incoming ICC money. I’d like to see that stick
Right there ZC would be making them air the nonsense around this loan.
There’s a very simple reason why none of the above has not been done. They’re protecting Bvute and I believe they’re in on it.
There’s complete silence from ZC over this loan. It’s a $24 million dollar heist is all it is and past and present board and directors are complicit.

[zimbos_05]

I think this is where my main point of disagreement is with Taps. I can't give them credit for anything when they are the ones who got us in this trouble.

To say that they have done a good job with the debt, well, they created the debt. Would getting the government involved in the debt not also be govt interference. It's probably clutching at straws a bit.

Again though, all of the bad times we have had should not have happened, but they have because of the board, now and since 04. Hence, to say that the board deserve credit for the loan, is to me, a fallacy.

If you shoot me in the leg, leave me to bleed for a few hours. Just tie a band aid around the wound and leave me for a few days in pain and barely getting by, and then turn around and say, "i have a phone, i'll call the ambulance", I'm not going to forgive you for shooting me, or callyou the hero for calling the ambulance. You will always be the villian.

This is exactly what the ZC board have done. They've created the problem, now want to carry on like they are heroes with that whole govt debt thing.

I agree with Googly too, Ervine got so much blame for that UAE loss, but what about Chatara. He went for 7 an over. Mire and Hammy scored 6 and 7 respectively. By his standards, BT failed too, only scoring 15. Ervine scored 22 off 17, so he was not taking his time and can't really be blamed for not pulling his weight.

Too many of the wrong things are being addressed and argued about and nothing is getting fixed.

Had we had a proper board, we would not be discussing things like losses to UAE or Singapore. We probably would not even be in qualifiers. A proper run organisation would have a proper functioning domestic season, no player drain, an A and National side competing regularly. Without that player drain, our squad looks so much more different and we are not discussing all these problems. Even with all those matches talked about, what is the point if we go through all of those 40 odd games and get nothing out of it, or no real progress.

[Googly]

And if this current board were genuine they would delve further back than this loan. This phrase “legacy debt” is bullshit. Investigate it. Where has the money gone? We’re down about 40 million over the years.
Where SRC went wrong was not sticking to their guns and getting hold of the books and proving wrong-doing.
Their spineless arses collapsed. It’s never been done here, the big dogs play catch and release with each other because they’ve got piles of dirt on each other and at some point the investigations become “politically sensitive.”
“Legacy debt” my arse.

[ZIMDOGGY]

In response to TapsC, I agree with the following comments from users saying you’re being a bit too sympathetic to them.

I do however really like the comment about in African Politics, you need to shoot to kill. Something you’ve talked about before and history has proven you right.
Googly has also discussed at length a variant of that concept.
I think you both get it and sometimes the foreigners here still instinctively think with conventional tactics, and the recent SRC fell victim to this mindset as well.
Need to play dirty a bit. I’d love to see someone like Donald Trump set his eyes on ZC, that would play out funny and I think he’d rip them up.

[Googly]

All SRC had to do was have a giant set of nuts and ignore ICC warnings and investigate and come up with proof of theft and corruption tout suite.
Easier said than done because that can take years in court unless you’ve got this “smoking gun” we keep talking about, or a few of them.
For me that’s the loan, that’s where the big money went.
I firmly believe Mlotshwa was told to back off because investigations would have led to other powerful people.
The timing of the Metbank shenanigans was poor. Had the revelations about their hand in various other corruption allegations come to light when SRC first embarked on this crusade we’d have had a different outcome.

It’s all water under the bridge, what remains to be seen is what ZC did actually agree to with the SRC and whether that will be implemented.
What springs to mind is-
Will Makoni have to step down as acting MD?
Who will take over?
Will there be player representation on the Board?
Will there be an oversight committee?
All these things were initially tabled, but we don’t know what was subsequently agreed upon.
There’s radio silence from SRC, Titan Law, ZC, Coventry etc. As usual we are in the dark and it’s unacceptable. Why are all these supposed journalists not asking these questions. Nothing asked, nothing answered.
All these muppets were quick to get onto Dean@Stumps and give their version of events when the battle was on, but now they’re all quiet and there’s an uneasy truce. It’s about as suspicious as it can get. This inability to speak for fear of victimization is why we’re in this hole.

[ZIMDOGGY]

What’s also complex is the everlasting race issue.
ZC have historically positioned themselves as a champion of black empowerment and have mistreated white admin and players at all levels.
BUT,
At the same time, the white guys are treated best. The whites of substantial quality (the ones in our top 15) have it good. Solid contracts for not much. Are given benefit of the doubt when they fail at times (as they should be because of the class over form factor) which someone like Musakanda hasn’t. Even afforded. This doesn’t extend to the ‘also ran’ whites who get discarded. Hence why out playing hierarchy resembles a chocolate muffin with vanilla icing.

Now the other side of the coin, is they absolutely exploit the people they pretend to champion, the black staff and players.
If I was black I’d be furious. ZC hold guns to the heads of you guys, make you accept low ball pittance offers sit hthe threat of ‘a little is better than none’. It’s worked but it’s dictator Kim Jong Un behaviour.
They condemn black players to a low ceiling of success. I think Googly mentioned the term ‘Give half to double’ in another thread.
They have taken away the Zimbabwean dream of being successful. I personally can would be disgusted at this behaviour. It’s soviet shit.

[ZIMDOGGY]

And to follow on with the race thought, if the nightmare admin of the last 17 years never happened, racially we would actually still be in a very similar spot to what we have now.

The last 4 years or so, the racial makeup has been around 6/4 white to black (plus Raza).

If we had kept our best in the system, we would definitely have a stronger and whiter domestic scene, but the national team would still be about 6/4 or 7/3 white to black.

The reason being is most of our white talent, even now, are batsman and fighting for batting spots. Our best black guys are bowlers.
In a full strength side, Chatara would still be in the 11. Blessing would be in the 11.
Hamilton would still have beeen in the 11 (except turfed at 34) and Mire and Elton would have been mainstays of our T20 side, which youd think would have triple the number of fixtures you’d get now.
And then you think of these X factor talents like Jongwe, Musakanda, Moyunga and maybe Muyeye who are basically allowed to rot. One of them could easily have risen up to be in our top 7 bats at full strength.

Players like Grandhomme and Ballance would basically be competing with Raza and Moor.

Basically what I’m saying is all the heartache of the racial shit over twenty years has only resulted in one more black player in the national team and a whole lot of suffering for them and the white guys.