MickeyD
RIP
England, India and Australia's power grab at the ICC is the worst thing that has ever happened to our sport
By Scyld Berry
25 Jun 2014
On Thursday the Full Council of the International Cricket Council is poised to rubber-stamp the worst thing that has ever happened to cricket, and nobody thereafter can do anything about it.
In future, the rich cricket countries will get richer. It is the same everywhere else in the world, of course, but this spits in the face of cricket. If it does anything of value, the sport promotes fair play on a level playing field.
In addition, Test cricket will surely be reduced to an ever diminishing number of countries, and the sport’s growth worldwide reduced; and if corruption and match-fixing are bad now, we may not have seen anything yet.
The worst thing that has happened to cricket is the takeover of the ICC by the chairmen of Australia, England and India in constitutional changes which will be rubberstamped today in Melbourne by their craven minions.
Everyone knows this power-grab is utterly unethical, but everyone with a vote has been asked: do you want to say no, or do you want a lucrative tour by India, with all the broadcasting rights you can sell? Or if you feel like a nice soft ICC loan, like the $4m just given to the West Indies board, you have only to ask!
Instead of behaving like a governing body, the new-look ICC will channel 62 per cent of the main money-pot into the pockets of Australia, England and above all India.
The chairmen of the Australian and England boards, Wally Edwards and Giles Clarke, say they had to go along with India to stop them breaking away – and it could well be argued that India, for generating most of cricket’s revenues, is entitled to something extra, like a six-week window free of international cricket so that all the best cricketers can participate in their Indian Premier League. But this does not explain why Australia and England are shoving their snouts in the trough.
And while the Big Three further enrich themselves, the other seven Test countries will be fobbed off with the honour of belonging to 'the Test Match club' and 5 per cent each. Enjoy the current Test series between West Indies and New Zealand, because they may not bother to subsidise the most uneconomic format for much longer – especially after the Big Three revealed what really interests them by killing off the World Test Championships of 2017 and 2021, which the old ICC had planned, and replacing it with a 50-over Champions Trophy.
Only a few people who are above the petty politics but know what is going on have spoken out: like several former ICC presidents, from various countries, and Lord Woolf, the former Chief Justice of England and Wales, who has roundly condemned this turning of the sport’s governing body into a private members’ club ruled exclusively by the Big Three.
One former ICC president, Ehsan Mani, has calculated that $300 million will be cut from the ICC’s Development Program in the next 10 years – money that will go into the pot for the Big Three to hog. The prospects of cricket expanding into China and the United States and becoming a global sport will be diminished, along with the budgets of Affiliate countries. The Big Three want to be big fishes in their own small pond.
You have to hand it to the three chairmen: the way they have forced through their takeover makes Machiavelli look naive. Essentially, they will rule every committee, and nothing will be on the agenda – let alone decided – without their approval.
And the new chairman of the ICC is Narayanaswami Srinivasan, who has been suspended as chairman of the Board of Control for Cricket in India by the country’s Supreme Court pending an investigation into corruption charges stemming from the IPL of 2013. One would have thought anyone with a shred of decency would have stood down from any involvement in the ICC until the allegations were dismissed.
Most disturbing, and disgusting, of all is that the Big Three will control all matters relating to anti-corruption, ethics and integrity issues: the very three people who have violated cricket’s core values.
I believe every cricket follower in Australia, England and India should feel ashamed at what their board chairmen are doing. The governments of those countries should be disturbed as well. It is foreseeable that people in the West Indies, Pakistan and around the world will resent our part in damaging their cricket.
This is the worst thing that has ever happened to our sport.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cr...hing-that-has-ever-happened-to-our-sport.html
By Scyld Berry
25 Jun 2014
On Thursday the Full Council of the International Cricket Council is poised to rubber-stamp the worst thing that has ever happened to cricket, and nobody thereafter can do anything about it.
In future, the rich cricket countries will get richer. It is the same everywhere else in the world, of course, but this spits in the face of cricket. If it does anything of value, the sport promotes fair play on a level playing field.
In addition, Test cricket will surely be reduced to an ever diminishing number of countries, and the sport’s growth worldwide reduced; and if corruption and match-fixing are bad now, we may not have seen anything yet.
The worst thing that has happened to cricket is the takeover of the ICC by the chairmen of Australia, England and India in constitutional changes which will be rubberstamped today in Melbourne by their craven minions.
Everyone knows this power-grab is utterly unethical, but everyone with a vote has been asked: do you want to say no, or do you want a lucrative tour by India, with all the broadcasting rights you can sell? Or if you feel like a nice soft ICC loan, like the $4m just given to the West Indies board, you have only to ask!
Instead of behaving like a governing body, the new-look ICC will channel 62 per cent of the main money-pot into the pockets of Australia, England and above all India.
The chairmen of the Australian and England boards, Wally Edwards and Giles Clarke, say they had to go along with India to stop them breaking away – and it could well be argued that India, for generating most of cricket’s revenues, is entitled to something extra, like a six-week window free of international cricket so that all the best cricketers can participate in their Indian Premier League. But this does not explain why Australia and England are shoving their snouts in the trough.
And while the Big Three further enrich themselves, the other seven Test countries will be fobbed off with the honour of belonging to 'the Test Match club' and 5 per cent each. Enjoy the current Test series between West Indies and New Zealand, because they may not bother to subsidise the most uneconomic format for much longer – especially after the Big Three revealed what really interests them by killing off the World Test Championships of 2017 and 2021, which the old ICC had planned, and replacing it with a 50-over Champions Trophy.
Only a few people who are above the petty politics but know what is going on have spoken out: like several former ICC presidents, from various countries, and Lord Woolf, the former Chief Justice of England and Wales, who has roundly condemned this turning of the sport’s governing body into a private members’ club ruled exclusively by the Big Three.
One former ICC president, Ehsan Mani, has calculated that $300 million will be cut from the ICC’s Development Program in the next 10 years – money that will go into the pot for the Big Three to hog. The prospects of cricket expanding into China and the United States and becoming a global sport will be diminished, along with the budgets of Affiliate countries. The Big Three want to be big fishes in their own small pond.
You have to hand it to the three chairmen: the way they have forced through their takeover makes Machiavelli look naive. Essentially, they will rule every committee, and nothing will be on the agenda – let alone decided – without their approval.
And the new chairman of the ICC is Narayanaswami Srinivasan, who has been suspended as chairman of the Board of Control for Cricket in India by the country’s Supreme Court pending an investigation into corruption charges stemming from the IPL of 2013. One would have thought anyone with a shred of decency would have stood down from any involvement in the ICC until the allegations were dismissed.
Most disturbing, and disgusting, of all is that the Big Three will control all matters relating to anti-corruption, ethics and integrity issues: the very three people who have violated cricket’s core values.
I believe every cricket follower in Australia, England and India should feel ashamed at what their board chairmen are doing. The governments of those countries should be disturbed as well. It is foreseeable that people in the West Indies, Pakistan and around the world will resent our part in damaging their cricket.
This is the worst thing that has ever happened to our sport.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cr...hing-that-has-ever-happened-to-our-sport.html
