Majola calls for strong action

The South African board has called on the ICC to bring in tough preventative and remedial measures to combat racial abuse from spectators, including lifetime bans for those involved. This follows yesterday's report by India's solicitor general, Goolam Vahanvati, on behalf of the ICC regarding the racial abuse suffered by the South African team on tour in Australia.

"We have not studied the full report, but judging from the comments made by the ICC chief executive, Malcolm Speed, the report confirms the occurrence of racial abuse directed at some of our players by spectators in Australia," Gerald Majola, Cricket South Africa's chief executive, said.

"Speed says that Vahanvati has also found that it would be wrong to attribute racial abuse to only expatriates living in Australia. [He] said that it was found that the abuse was premeditated, coordinated and calculated to get after players. This justifies statements made on this issue by our team management, and fully justifies our official complaint to the ICC.

"Racialism cannot be allowed to raise its ugly head in sport, and the use of it by some Australian spectators to get at opponents is serious in the extreme."

Majola added that it was now time for the ICC to take action. "The report has confirmed our view that the ICC must add tough preventative and remedial measures to its policy in order to stamp racialism out of cricket. As far as spectators are concerned, we are going to recommend that the ICC adopts our security measures at matches under its jurisdiction."

He said that security for matches in South Africa has been stepped up and measures put into place to ensure people who are caught don't return to the ground. "Our measures include placing extra security personnel near players fielding on the boundary, who were the main targets in Australia. Our security officials have been instructed to quickly identify culprits, expel them from the ground, charge them criminally at the nearest police station, photograph them, and then ban them for life.

"We in South Africa take racism very seriously because of our history. We know how dangerous it is to let it grow, and we simply cannot allow it to gain a foothold in cricket."

Majola drew comparisons with the way FIFA has had to deal with racial abuse in football. "The organised racism that occurred on the Australia tour is reminiscent of racial abuse by spectators in European football. The ICC must adopt the stringent measures employed by FIFA which include punitive action against relevant federations if necessary.

"We are grateful to the ICC for its prompt handling of this matter, and we are confident that tough measures will now follow".