In a move which can potentially eat into India’s share of International Cricket Council (ICC) revenue, the world body has kept BCCI out of the newly-formed working group which will consider a framework for a new governance structure. TOI has learnt that the group has been formed to negate the impact of the ‘Big Three’ model which was formulated to ensure India, Australia and England receive the lion’s share of ICC revenues. Interestingly, the working group doesn’t have any representation from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) either.
The primary objective of the group is to get in more independent directors in the powerful ICC board, an ICC source said.
The group, which will suggest governance reforms, will be headed by Cricket Australia (CA) chairman Earl Eddings and be supported by Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ehsan Mani, New Zealand Cricket chairman Greg Barclay, Cricket South Africa president Chris Nenzani, Cricket West Indies president Ricky Skerritt and Cricket Scotland chairman Tony Brian. Interestingly, an ICC working group usually has CEOs and member representatives of boards in a fair ratio.
“The ICC has been consciously trying to go back to the model that was followed from 1998 to 2016. The ICC’s revenues have grown significantly and the BCCI gets a fair share. The other established member boards are struggling with finances and the associates need more funding. That’s why it was first suggested in the annual meeting in London in July that ICC should hold its own events every year to generate more revenue but the BCCI disowned the proposal,” sources told TOI.
“The management in the ICC believes that previous model was fair than the model suggested by the previous BCCI regime,” the source added.
BCCI has been contending that it should get more percentage of the revenues than others since the largest percentage of the game’s revenues are generated in India. However, the ICC, led by chairman Shashank Manohar, slashed BCCI’s proposed share in preceding years.
Clearly, the BCCI has been caught off guard. “There is no BCCI in place at the moment. There is no point in discussing things with CoA chief Vinod Rai and Johri. The man that needs to be spoken to is BCCI president-elect Sourav Ganguly. And that will happen after he assumes office on October 23,” a top BCCI official told TOI.
