Row over Mandela 'support' for Cronje

By Paul Martin Cainer   in Johannesburg

A major row in South Africa is brewing over the intervention of former South African president Nelson Mandela in the cricket match-fixing affair. Cricket bosses in particular are privately expressing irritation that he met ex-captain Hansie Cronje near his cape coastal home on Friday and bizzarely told him he could still be a role model.

Cronje was disgraced in a match-fixing scandal that cost him the captaincy of the national side.

"I am saying to him, without excusing in any way what he has done if the allegations are proven to be right, that he can be a role model and turn this tragedy into triumph," Mr Mandela told reporters.

He added that Cronje should have confessed all when the allegations of match-fixing surfaced in April and should be punished if he was found guilty of wrongdoing by the commission probing the scandal.

The 82-year-old statesman and former first lady Graca Machel spent an hour with Cronje and his wife Bertha at their home at a luxury golf resort near George on the south coast.

Mandela said he has known Cronje, who was one the country's most popular sportsmen before the scandal broke, for long and would not treat him like a leper.

But he insisted that the visit, which took place at Cronje's request, was not an attempt to sway the outcome of the King Commission's inquiry into match-fixing in South African cricket.

Cricket officials have tried to lay the blame for the scandal almost exclusively at Cronje's door, and were considered lenient with batting star Herschelle Gibbs and aspirant pace bowler Henry Williams, both of whom admitted agreeing to bribes for under-performing. Gibbs can resume his international career from January 1 2000.

Cronje says he has retired from the game.

"Mandela is a great man," says one official. "But by talking in this way he gives the impression that Cronje can return to cricket as player or administrator. That is very dangerous to South Africa's attempts to be seen as tough on corruption in cricket."

Cronje admitted in June to the King Commission, often in tearful testimony, that he received thousands of dollars from gamblers and bookmakers on five separate occasions between 1996 and 2000.

He also confessed that he offered teammates money in exchange for under performing in Test matches.

The commission will resume its hearings into the matter in November and is likely to make recommendations to the government by early December, according to Sports Minister Ngconde Balfour.

Mail Cricket Editor