King Commission interim report to be made public Friday

The King Commission's interim report on the Hansie Cronje match-fixing scandal will be made public on Friday morning, a spokesman for the sports ministry said Wednesday.

"It is being made public on Friday. We will post it on the government's website," Gregory Abrahams, the spokesman for Sport and Recreation Minister Ngconde Balfour, said.

The lengthy, long-awaited report on Cronje's confessions of corruption was on August 11 handed to Balfour who in turn gave it to President Thabo Mbeki to study before it could be published.

The United Cricket Board of South Africa said it was expecting to receive a copy of the report on Thursday morning and would hand one to International Cricket Council president David Richards, who is in the country.

"We are getting it tomorrow (Thursday) but we won't comment on it until Monday when we make public the findings of the disciplinary hearings," UCB spokeswoman Bronwyn Wilkinson told AFP.

The UCB will Monday announce what disciplinary steps it will take against Herschelle Gibbs, Henry Williams and Pieter Strydom, three players who were implicated in corruption in the course of hearings into the Cronje scandal.

Gibbs and Williams told the commission that Cronje, sacked as South Africa's skipper in April, had offered them money to underperform in matches against India this year, while Strydom made an attempt to place a bet on behalf of Cronje during a Test match. In testimony that shook the cricket world, Cronje admitted to the commission that he received thousands of dollars from gamblers and bookmakers on five separate occasions between 1996 and 2000.

The initial shock by the South African public at Cronje's confessions has given way to anger as the one-time idol has revealed himself to be manipulating and money-loving, and had corrupted other players.

The report should be read with interest though Judge Edwin King has made no recommendations for disciplinary action against the players, nor has he made any finding on whether Cronje had told the whole truth and should therefore receive indemnity from criminal prosecution.

Judge King has said that further evidence could emerge when the commission reconvenes on October 2 for a second set of hearings expected to last about two weeks.

King has asked for the terms of reference of the commission to be broadened as a result of the evidence that came up in the first hearings in July.

Mail Cricket Editor