Thursday, 23 June 2005
Tour under threat
It seemed that National radio could talk about nothing but how disgraceful it is that the New Zealand team are still planning to tour Zimbabwe. Martin Snedden has made a good case for the tour going ahead, but all any of the critics (Rod Donald, John Minto, Zimbabwe nationals living in New Zealand) seemed to hear was that the government just needs to stump up $2million to pay the fine and we don't have to go. Unfortunately things are more complex than that. What these critics should have been doing, and should have started doing years ago, is to put pressure on the body which can actually do something about allowing tours into that troubled country - the ICC. There is no point putting pressure on New Zealand Cricket because any action they take will have far worse implications for New Zealand than they will for Zimbabwe.
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4 comments:
Mike, I don't really see why the ICC should have the responsibility of halting tours to Zimbabwe. Any issues between New Zealand (or other countries) and Zimbabwe with regards the human rights problems there are matters of foreign relations and not the responsibilities of sporting bodies such as the ICC or NZC.
Decisions about whether or not sporting tours should go ahead under such circumstances should be made by governments. Given the political and trade sanctions against Zimbabwe that New Zealand has already put in place, it would only be consistent if sporting contacts were also restricted. Looking at the definition of force majeure in the ICC members' agreement, it would take very little by the New Zealand government to give NZC an excuse to pull out.
And whatever happens, whether we go or not, things will be worse for New Zealand than for Zimbabwe in the short term.
I think we mostly agree Ben. Perhaps you are right that the ICC are as powerless as NZC. But we both agree on the fundamental point that a) this should not be something NZC are responsible for and b) whatever happens New Zealand Cricket will suffer more than Zimbabwe.
I think we agree on the bind that NZC is in and that it is not NZC's responsibility to make the decision to abandon the tour of Zimbabwe, given that they are contracted to go.
However, we seem to disagree on who should make this decision for NZC. I don't think the ICC is at fault here. And I don't think it is really a matter of how powerless they are - I just don't think they should be making moral decisions for us. In fact, I think they should be doing what they can to ensure cricket is being played.
I believe the onus is on the NZ government. While the ICC would surely oppose any team refusing to go to Zimbabwe, the members' agreement does allow for boycotts. If the government acted to dissuade NZC from touring, that would count as force majeure and the tour could be abandoned without penalty.
I don't know what the government might do, but I don't accept Phil Goff's claim that there is nothing they can legally do. All this talk of the government not letting the cricket team leave the country is a red herring; such strong measures are not required.
I don't think we should be touring. Whether or not a boycott would do any good, I don't think we should go. There will be consequences of pulling out, of course, but with government backing those consequences will be greatly lessened.
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