International players body against ICC proposals

International players body against ICC proposals
Story Created: Jan 22, 2014 at 8:23 PM ECT

The Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (FICA) urged Test playing nations yesterday to reject the controversial proposals that would effectively place Australia, England and India in charge of the world game.
A working group of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Finance and Commercial Affairs committee has come up with the proposal recommending international calendar and revenue share be controlled by the three boards who bring the most income to the game.

Cricket boards of South Africa and Pakistan have objected to the restructuring proposal, while FICA said it was “extremely concerned about the future of international cricket”.
“This proposal is designed to vest control of the game in the three Boards of India, Australia and England,” FICA executive chairman Paul Marsh said in a statement.

“The game deserves far better than this and all within FICA call on the other seven ICC Board members to reject this proposal at next week’s board meeting. The future of the game depends on them doing so,” he said.
The proposal will be put to the ICC Executive Board at its quarterly two-day meeting in Dubai starting on Tuesday and would need votes from seven of the ten member countries to be passed.
Australian Marsh said cricket chiefs have a duty to put ICC’s interest ahead of those of the individual boards and questioned whether it was met in this case.

“It is not in the best interests of the global game and we have real fears that it will only serve to strengthen the ‘big three’ countries whilst the rest are left to wither on the vine.”
The proposal would also give the ‘big three’ a bigger share of the ICC’s revenue pot, which Marsh feared would only increase the gulf separating them from other teams.

“The result of this will be the countries that need ICC income most will receive the least, whilst the ‘big three’ will get the lion’s share even though they are already financially healthy because of the value of the rights to their bilateral series.”

I hate this rule. And as someone pointed out - oligarchy at it's worst. If this makes it through, I'm pretty much done with cricket.
I hope this faces fierce opposition from everywhere. Even as it stands BCCI and a other top 2 boards own cricket, they're looking to codify it? Bullshit.

Good point Kyle , they are already doing it !  :-[

This defies the whole purpose of the ICC.

There will always be the more influential members but the ICC management structure is there to ensure equity ensuring the development of cricket as a whole.

If cricket is not developed and resources shared, we will see crickets' coverage narrowing even more.

In the context of this forum the WICB should be working in partnership with the ICC, sharing their vision and the assistance they require.

A part of that strategy should be drop in pitches if no one in the region can sort out the soil issues.

The WICB also has to have a strategy to attract spectators back to test matches.

This is one of the most idiotic suggestions I have heard for a long time.