Government may fund legal challenge over Zimbabwe tour

Phil Goff

Tensions between the Government and New Zealand Cricket rose last night as international cricketing authorities insisted the Black Caps tour to Zimbabwe must go ahead.

Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff yesterday asked what NZ Cricket's position on a tour to Zimbabwe would be if it was left to make a moral decision without the burden of a severe financial penalty.

He also pointed out NZ Cricket chief executive Martin Snedden had not returned a telephone call to discuss the Zimbabwe crisis.

"They have said that they haven't really taken much time to examine the ethics of touring, because the dominant issue is the issue of the penalties."

He said if money was the main issue, the Government would discuss with NZ Cricket what actions could be taken to ease the burden. That could include financing a legal challenge to the International Cricket Council's rules in a world court.

Mr Goff said normally sports bodies would want their sport to be kept separate from politics and he would agree.

"There comes a particular point in time where the issue of human rights is so overwhelming, and the abuse of them so gross, you simply cannot separate the fact that we would be in Zimbabwe at the same time as hundreds of thousands of people were being made homeless.

"If we don't draw the line here, where do we draw the line?

"Do we wait for the mass deaths of people?"

He said Mr Snedden was caught between "a rock and a hard place" on the issue.

Mr Snedden has been in London at the ICC's annual meeting, and has said he will comment when he gets back.

The Black Caps are due to tour Zimbabwe for a test series, and a one-day tri-series also involving India, in August and September.

If the tour is cancelled for other than security reasons, NZ Cricket faces a minimum $2.8 million fine, suspension from international cricket and possibly other costs such as compensation for the loss of television rights.

ICC chairman Ehsan Mani said in London yesterday that the tour should go ahead, and nations were bound by the future tours contract. He said the ICC's responsibility was to cricket, and what was best for the game.

However, he also said no one, which would include NZ Cricket, had raised the issue of touring Zimbabwe at the meeting so it had not been discussed.

Mr Goff also took a swipe at South Africa's Government, saying it would not acknowledge the grossness of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. South African cricket said yesterday that it would not heed New Zealand's call for an international cricketing boycott of Zimbabwe.

Mr Goff has asked the Governments of Britain and Australia to support a New Zealand approach to the ICC to stop tours to Zimbabwe at the moment.

But last night, Green Party co-leader Rod Donald said the Government could and should announce sporting sanctions against Zimbabwe as a first step to stopping the tour.

He said without that, Mr Goff's comments were "bluff and bluster".

The National Bank, a major sponsor of the Black Caps, says it will meet NZ Cricket officials "as soon as possible" for talks on the Zimbabwe tour.

Discussions would be held with Mr Snedden "to find out where things stand" when he returned, bank spokeswoman Cynthia Brophy said yesterday.

Ms Brophy refused to confirm if any clients had closed their accounts in protest at the bank's financial support of the team, as suggested on some radio stations yesterday.

What happens now?

* Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff says the Government could help NZ Cricket pay for a legal challenge to the International Cricket Council's rules in a world court.

* If the challenge succeeds, the Black Caps could pull out of the tour without being penalised millions of dollars.