As the sweeping changes to the governance of world cricket are approved and start to roll out, the ICC seem keen to assert that No member will be worse of than they are at present as a justification for all the changes. In other words the richest nations can expect to be come disproportionately richer than the poorer ones. Sorry do I sound a little sceptical, or is it as ICC Preseident Alan Issac stated "the board made changes to the long term certainty of the financial models of the ICC"
As the dust begins to settle on the fact that 2 of the 8 full members abstained from voting it has been interesting to read the comments of Giles Clarke Chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board. In an article in todays Sunday Times in which he tries to defend the KP saga, although officially this decision was actually taken by Paul Downton and Alastair Cook, Clarke talks about taking unpopular decisions.
In a PR exercise worthy of those undertaken by the Royal Family's press machine (and we all know my thorts' on that) Clarke actually says " The ICC has 105 members of whom 10 have voting rights, it's not a democracy and doesn't aspire to be"
Now I am not going to suggest that the ICC is run alongside the lines of North Korea and it's democratically elected leader Kim Jong Un who has such a wonderful relationship with all his relatives, but his comments and his power grabbing colleagues seem to me to be so far removed from the true feelings of the real fans. Although any protests that took place recently were ignored by both the majority of the media and the ICC.
Clarke claims that huge numbers (meaning true cricket fans) have not actually understood the decisions taken that benefit so few countries, ooops sorry, world cricket. Well perhaps Mr Clarke you should be open and transparent in the discussions you undertook ahead of the ICC meeting and try to understand why Pakistan and Sri Lanka abstained from voting.
Every organisation can change over time but Giles Clarke's faith in future ICC broadcasting rights as the answer to all problems is a dangerous step, just like getting rid of KP. I worry that the ECB may well spend their future income in advance, rather like those football teams in the English Premier League and then when results go against them and fans stop turning up rely on the pound or dollar to sustain themselves.
Financially cricket should be in a very healthy position, the various T20 competitions around the world have injected interest in the game whilst the Ashes series (although a disaster for this writer) proved how a nation can get behind the test team.
In the ICC we have to trust, Don't We?
any comments welcome on twitter to @NotSubject
thanks
Terry
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