Magellan has ended a three-year deal with Cricket Australia as the naming-rights sponsor, which was signed in August 2017.
The deal, which commenced during the recent Ashes series against England, will be torn up seven months into the three-year agreement.
Australia captain Steve Smith admitted that the senior leadership of the team made and implemented plans to tamper with the ball during the recent third Test against South Africa in Cape Town.
Steve Smith and vice captain David Warner have both been banned from playing for Australia for 12 months, while batsman Cameron Bancroft has received a nine-month ban.
Magellan chief executive Hamish Douglass said, “A conspiracy by the leadership of the Australian Men’s Test Cricket Team, which broke the rules with a clear intention to gain an unfair advantage during the third Test in South Africa, goes to the heart of integrity.
“Regrettably, these recent events are so inconsistent with our values that we are left with no option but to terminate our ongoing partnership with Cricket Australia.
“We were delighted with the recent Magellan Ashes series sponsorship and it is with a heavy heart that we have to end our partnership in these circumstances.”
This not a moral comment from Magellan, just an opportunistic business decision. An Ashes series was always going to be the biggest platform this sponsorship would get, thanks to the players and CA knee jerk reaction to the non cricketing public’s evangelical outcry, they’ve been able to legally eat the cherry off the top of the ice cream and then leave without paying for the whole meal.
It’s interesting that a fund manager can take this stance when our financial services associations have a very different attitude as to whom they want to play cricket with. What would it take for the FPA to “drop” CBA Financial Planning and NAB from their professional partner lineup? A royal commission certainly doesn’t do anything, allegations of bribery doesn’t do anything either. Certainly sends a very distinct message as to the level of importance and support they need and draw from these organizations. Dear FPA, the game has changed and evolved and your members have moved on… you dropped the ball with Opt in and LIF and now for the very last time with FASEA. What was once acceptable, is now very smelly. As I’m sick of over regulation & Government intervention I’m certainly dropping the FPA as you are not our star batsman.
absolutely weak as water – they want investors to stick by them through the good and bad times yet the minute there is an issue they walk – I wont be advising any of my clients to use them as they are fickle. ACB over reacted – ICC handed down their findings and penalties – just like they did to all the other players across the world who have tampered with the ball, yet CA goes overboard – where was Magellan and CA when Warner and his wife were subjected to the disgusting rants and innuendo? where was CA when the captain Smith was shirt fronted by the SA bowler?
I reckon Eddie McGuire said it best on Triple M’s Hot Breakfast a few weeks ago when he suggested corporate companies would be judged accordingly when “They’re happily there for the celebrations, but no where to be seen when’s there’s a need for perspiration”.
The ‘Magellan Ashes Series’ never had the same ring to it as past major sponsors anyway!
Magellan probably realised it was a waste of money. At the end of the series my husband still had no idea who Magellan was or what they did.
What a disgrace a fund manager gets on their high horse like this. They cast every player with the same brush. Very weak action and only doing for money not morals. I hope CA come at them for terminating the contract.
You’re a fund manager Magellan, how about stop ripping off battlers with high fees…to underperform.