Good governance is equally applicable in sports – fall-out from the great Aussie ball tampering scandal – An opinion by Aubrey Joachim

Regulators of the game, Prime Ministers, sponsorship stakeholders and the sporting public are all concerned and disturbed by a little piece of yellow tape shoved down the pants of a cricketer. Seems pretty bizarre, right? However, when such an incident has virtually brought a country to its knees by embarrassing it in front of the whole world and potentially has multi-million dollar impacts across a number of fronts it is a serious concern.

How could such a situation have arisen in a space where Australia has always considered itself to be world leaders – not only in the context of its ‘perceived’ superiority on the field of play but also the moral guardians of the spirit of the game? In Australia cricket is not merely a sport but a corporate juggernaut – almost a billion dollar direct revenue generating pursuit where the players earn six to seven figure incomes on the field and many multiples of that amount off the field. Sponsorship stakeholders of Cricket Australia and the big name players bank heavily on driving their own revenues from associating their names and logos by placing their faith not only in performance excellence but also in the honesty, integrity and fair play in return for parting with multi-million dollar cheques. The financial multiplier effect is exponential.  Does Qantas pay millions of dollars to have its logo on the cap worn by a self-confessed international cheat? This is why the great Australian ball tampering scandal is of such concern.

But how did a once proud sporting nation get to a situation where it is made to grovel in the dust by the acts of a cheating sporting captain, his ‘leadership team’ and a seemingly naïve apprentice player who blindly carried out the whims of his seniors and now will forever have to live with memories of his crotch emblazoned on TV screens around the world? While the world’s focus is on a few men in white who will – hopefully – rue their actions for the rest of their lives, the real leadership team have so far escaped scrutiny. In reality when that infamous crotch is aired by the world’s media it is also the portrayal of the governance within the sport.

What happened in Newlands, Capetown during the third test match between Australia and South Africa has been very long in the making. Serious questions must be asked of the governance and risk management processes within Cricket Australia’s governing body. With its reputation in tatters questions must be asked if appropriate risk management and oversight processes were in place. Its revenue line is significantly influenced by reputation. At this current juncture of broadcast rights negotiations the ball tampering fracas is a multi-million dollar problem for Cricket Australia. Was the culture within the organisation conducive to high moral and ethical standards from the board room down to the field of play? It is said that the culture of an organisation’s board and senior management sets the tone in an organisation. Was this the case? Was the board aware of an impending disaster that has now eventuated? Were there scorecards which monitored non-financial metrics such as team culture, player behaviour, coaching standards and culture, off-field incidents, social media comments etc? Keeping track of the financial bottom line alone would not suffice. The board should have realised that such metrics were key to protecting their product offering and hence revenue potential. If Cricket Australia was a listed company its market capitalisation would have taken a massive hit and the CEO and board would be accountable to the shareholders. Australian cricket has certainly been bowled middle stump!