Behind CSA’s decision to drop Teeger as captain

Although Cricket SA (CSA) has no fears over the direct safety of David Teeger during the ICC Under-19 World Cup, it is understood the prospect of planned protests turning violent motivated the organisation to remove him as captain of the SA U19 team.

The CSA has refused to make any further comment after the statement it released on Friday. However, it is believed senior officials, based on security assessments the organisation had received, felt it would be “irresponsible” to keep Teeger in the spotlight as a captain.

Teeger has been at the centre of a controversy after comments he made — in support of the Israeli Defense Forces when he received the “Rising Star Award” at the Jewish Achiever Awards last October — were made public.

The CSA subsequently appointed advocate Wim Trengove to conduct an inquiry into whether Teeger had breached its code of conduct, which Trengove found was not the case.

Protests by at least one pro-Palestinian group are planned for the SA team’s opening World Cup match in Potchefstroom on Friday, when they face the West Indies.

The CSA’s hope that the decision to strip Teeger of the captaincy would temper some of the intensity around the issue seemed optimistic, with plenty of fury directed at it on social media since Friday.

However, some CSA officials believe the organisation will just have to ride out the storm. On Saturday, the SA Zionist Foundation condemned the CSA’s decision, calling it “a blatant act of discrimination and anti-Semitism against a Jewish player”.

In its statement on Friday, the CSA said it had “a primary duty to safeguard the interests and safety of all those involved in the World Cup and must accordingly respect the expert advice of those responsible for the safety of participants and spectators”.

While Teeger’s safety hasn’t been threatened, concerns that protests could turn violent were central to the CSA’s decision.

The organisation faced a “no-win” situation, said one official. “Imagine if, because of protests, someone gets hurt or worse because a rubber bullet is fired ... we don’t want that happening at a cricket match,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

A small group of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside Newlands on the first morning of the second Test between India and SA recently, but other than a shouting match between some of them and the police — who asked them to move away from the gate through which spectators were entering — there was no hint of violence.

Some of the protesters who had tickets were permitted to enter the ground with Palestinian flags.

The CSA approached Trengove in December following a complaint lodged by the Palestinian Solidarity Alliance about Teeger’s comments. In his defence before Trengove, Teeger said his comments were a personal opinion. “Having considered the matter further, I appreciate I may have been naive in thinking that this personal reflection would be received as such,” he told Trengove.

“I regret not giving more consideration to whether my impromptu comments would be scrutinised, given my growing prominence in sport, or that these comments may be repeated in the media — although I maintain that my comments cannot reasonably be interpreted to be representative of the position of CSA, [his provincial team, the Central Gauteng] Lions or any of the teams in which I participate. And, at the time, I did not intend or foresee that anyone would interpret the comments in this way.”

Trengove found that Teeger’s comments could “not be understood to imply his approval or even condonation of genocide or any other crime. Others might find his statements offensive,” Trengove wrote in his findings. “But they would understand that the constitutional right to freedom of expression requires of us to be tolerant even of views that we find offensive.”