The Indian Professional League (“IPL”) held its tournament in South Africa in the first half of 2009. The tournament was hosted by Cricket South Africa (“CSA”). The event was by all accounts a great success. Mr Gerald Majola (“Mr Majola”), as the CEO of CSA, handled negotiations and concluded the agreement with the Indian authorities for the staging of the tournament in this country. Dr Mtutuzeli Nyoka (“Dr Nyoka”), as the president of CSA praised Mr Majola for the role he played in negotiating and staging the tournament.

If it all ended there it would have been a happy ending of a good story. However, the payment of bonuses by the IPL to the staff of CSA and the way in which the payments were handled by CSA unleashed a wave of events that wrecked and strained relationships within management of CSA and culminated in a special general meeting of CSA on 12 February 2011. At that meeting CSA took a decision to remove Dr Nyoka from his office as the president of CSA, the position to which he had been re-elected unopposed in August 2010. Dr Nyoka and Mr Majola, and the roles they played, are central to the strained relationship in the management of CSA, and in order to understand fully the cause thereof, it is important to contextualise them.