The proposal of overhauling the International Cricket Council (ICC) has been accepted “unanimously”at a crucial meeting of the ICC at Dubai late Tuesday. The big takeaway form the meeting from BCCI’s point of view is that BCCI president N Srinivasan is likely to take over as the first ICC Board chairman under the new proposed set up, as from June 14 onwards a Chairman’s post will run for 2 years; and that the BCCI will nominate the first representative as the ICC Chairman. For that to happen Srinivasan’s name should be forarded by the BCCI which is yet to happen.
Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) status as the most influential cricketing body was acknowledged at the meeting and most of its demands were “unanimously” supported (make what you want of that).
ICC President, Alan Isaac, has come out in support of the proposals which will give financial and administrative control of the world cricket to India, England and Australia.
However, a consensus on the proposed radical changes is yet to be made as some members are vehemently opposed to the power-sharing idea between the “the Big Three” countries.
Here’s the ICC press relese after yesterday’s meeting:
The first day of the International Cricket Council’s Board meetings concluded in Dubai today with unanimous support for a set of principles relating to the future structure, governance and financial models of the ICC.
The ICC Board unanimously supported the following principles:
1. There will be an opportunity for all Members to play all formats of cricket on merit, with participation based on meritocracy; no immunity to any country, and no change to membership status.
2. A Test Cricket Fund paid equally on an annual basis to all Full Members (except the Board of Control for Cricket in India, Cricket Australia and the England and Wales Cricket Board) will be introduced to encourage and support Test match cricket.
3. A larger percentage from the increasing Associate Members’ surplus will be distributed to the higher performing non-Full Members.
4. Mutually agreed bi-lateral FTP Agreements which will be legally binding and bankable and will run for the same period as the ICC commercial rights cycle (2015-2023).
5. Recognition of the need for strong leadership of the ICC, involving leading Members, which will involve BCCI taking a central leadership responsibility.
6. A need to recognise the varying contribution of Full Members to the value of ICC events through the payment of ‘contribution costs’.
7. The establishment of an Executive Committee (ExCo) and Financial & Commercial Affairs Committee (F&CA) to provide leadership at an operational level, with five members, including BCCI, CA and ECB representatives. Anybody from within the Board can be elected to Chair the Board and anybody from within ExCo and F&CA can be elected to Chair those Committees. With the ICC undergoing a transitional period that includes a new governance structure and media rights cycle, this leadership will be provided for two years from June 2014 by: a BCCI representative to Chair the ICC Board, a CA representative to Chair the ExCo and an ECB representative to Chair the F&CA.
8. A new company will be incorporated to tender future commercial rights for ICC events. There will be three major ICC events in each four-year cycle, including the ICC Champions Trophy which will replace the ICC World Test Championship.
9. ICC will utilise a more efficient operating model for all ICC events, with a simplified accounting model across ICC income and expenditure to help better manage ICC administrative and event costs.
ICC President Alan Isaac said: “This is an important time for world cricket and it is extremely encouraging that the ICC Board has unanimously supported a set of far-reaching principles that will underpin the long-term prosperity of the global game.
“These principles emphasise the primacy of Test cricket and that for the first time in cricket’s history participation will be based entirely on meritocracy, giving everyone powerful incentives to play better cricket and develop better cricketers.
“There is more work to be done by the Members in developing their schedules of bilateral cricket while at the ICC we need to work through the detail of the manner in which these principles will be implemented.
“Extensive work will now be undertaken in advance of a follow-up Board meeting next month.”
