Dubai: The International Cricket Council (ICC) Board will meet here on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss a proposal that may yield huge executive and financial powers to India, England and Australia, splitting the cricketing world.
Experts around the world have expressed fear that the controversial motion, which is likely to be passed in the meeting at the ICC Headquarters in the Dubai Sports City, would belittle the powers of the ICC.
Former ICC president Ehsan Mani fears that placing so much control in the hands of the “big three” nations would lead to decisions being made that weren’t beneficial for cricket on the whole.
“All the powers will be vested in the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and Cricket Australia (CA). The reputation of the ICC and international cricket as a whole is at risk if the right standard of boardroom behaviour is not seen to be in place, both in the ICC and in each and every member board,” Mani told Gulf News.
“Those in a strong financial position are using that strength to provide leverage to reach decisions that may be in individual member’s interest rather than the interests of the majority of full members or international cricket as a whole. “The directors of the ICC have a duty first and foremost to the ICC. They must put the interests of the ICC before the interests of their respective boards, they must act in good faith to protect and promote the interests of the ICC and avoid conflicts of interest.”
Mani believes that the proposal ignores the recommendations in the Governance Report produced by Lord Woolf, which says: “The surplus revenues from the ICC’s activities should be available to the ICC to be distributed for the good of the international game. The present arrangements involving a revenue-sharing mechanism predominantly for the benefit of existing Full Members should cease. It should be replaced with one whereby Full Members receive a fair share of revenues based on need. This would enable the ICC to distribute funding in accordance with its overarching role to promote and develop international cricket, including Test Cricket, across all Members.” According to Mani, the ICC events for 2015 to 2023 will be held only in India, England and Australia. These boards will receive hosting fees for the events in addition to the ICC distributions they propose.
Mani and another former president, Malcolm Gray, former ICC Chief Executive Malcolm Speed, ex-West Indies skipper and chairman of cricket committee Clive Lloyd, and past presidents of the Pakistan Cricket Board Shariyar Khan and Tauqir Zia, have written to current ICC president Alan Isaac and directors of the ICC highlighting the dangers of the proposal.
Ali Bacher, former chief of the South African Cricket board, has said: “The Position Paper put forward by BCCI, ECB and CA if accepted would lead to division and strife in world cricket as never seen before. ICC member countries should never forget the animosity that existed, particularly in the subcontinent and the Caribbean, when England and Australia had veto rights before 1993.”
