Cape Town – SuperSport announced that it will not be pursuing a proposed shareholding agreement with Cricket South Africa (CSA) for its domestic T20 tournament.

Originally called the T20 Global League, the tournament was scrapped just weeks before it was due to be launched at the end of 2017.

In June, CSA and SuperSport joined together to form a new company called Newco.

The tournament, which was postponed to November 2018, included a name change and is set to feature six franchises as opposed to eight.

However, broadcaster SuperSport have confirmed on Tuesday that they will no longer pursue the T20 equity deal with CSA.

“This is unfortunate,” said SuperSport CEO Gideon Khobane.

“We reached an in-principle agreement with CSA regarding co-ownership of this event in June this year. Since then, the parties have been engaged in amicable discussions regarding the details of the proposed relationship.

“We have used our best endeavours to reach consensus with CSA around that shareholding model, but this has unfortunately not happened. The discussions on the in-principle shareholding agreement terminated on July 23, 2018,” said Khobane.

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However, SuperSport have confirmed that they are in talks with CSA over broadcasting rights.

“We have therefore decided to discontinue negotiations about shareholding. We are, however engaged in constructive discussions with CSA regarding the broadcast of the event,” concluded Khobane.

Another major issue for CSA is that at least four of the original franchise owners from the failed 2017 product have threatened legal action against CSA, who cannot guarantee that they will be team owners in the new-look 2018 edition. 

The inaugural event is expected to be played during November and December 2018.