Northerns cricket boss Faul offers helping hand for local sport to avoid crisis

To avoid wasting a good crisis, Dr Jacques Faul, CEO of the Northerns Cricket Union, has authored a book which he hopes will assist sports administrators in the country with governance. 

Titled Crisis Management in Sport, Faul, has relied on his two stints as an interim CEO of Cricket South Africa (CSA), when he was parachuted in as the organisation’s administration disintegrated, to aid in the writing of the book.

“There was a lot of pain and suffering I had to go through as a young CEO and situations you have to handle they don’t teach you about in business school, and this is a contribution I wanted to make to the field of sports management,” said Faul. 

His first stint as CSA’s stand-in CEO occurred in 2012 in the wake of the “bonus scandal’ which saw the suspension of CSA’s then boss, Gerald Majola.

More recently he was seconded to CSA after the suspension of Thabang Moroe in December 2019, encountering an environment Faul describes in his book as “toxic ... and issues driven by raw emotion”.

“You need ethical and good people to run organisations,” said Faul.

One element of South African sport before and after the end of apartheid was the dominance of personalities in administrative leadership, be it Abdul Bhamjee and Danny Jordaan in football, Louis Luyt in rugby or Ali Bacher and Majola in cricket. 

Faul acknowledges the importance of a strong personality in leadership positions, but said those need to be offset by strong personalities in other areas of the organisation. 

“Strong individuals can appear that way because others are weak. We allow some to become strong, to bully and what you need is good, confident people to provide the balance to ensure the checks and balances are maintained,” said Faul.

“You also need people to move on. I’ve felt that if you have been in a position for too long, you start to create what is almost an empire. That is why good governance should be in place to ensure the necessary restrictions.” 

Faul believes CSA is in a much stronger position now than when he left the organisation in 2020.

“I don't take credit for it and many individuals involved after my resignation brought the organisation back to more stable ground and they must be credited for it.” 

Crisis Management in Sport features chapters from authors covering different fields within sport’s administration, from human resources to communication. 

The book is available for purchase through KR publishing at its website: https://kr.co.za/kr-books/