The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has rejected a $100 million grant from the International Cricket Council (ICC) in the backdrop of an ongoing tussle between the apex cricketing body and BCCI over financial and governance changes in ICC.
The two bodies had met on 25 April in Dubai, ICC’s headquarters, to find a solution for their differences. The $100 million fund was additional to the revenue share of BCCI.
Under the Big Three revenue model, BCCI gets around $570 million and the proposed financial changes will bring down its revenue to $290 million. BCCI is the highest contributor to ICC in terms of revenue and wants a revenue model that will fetch the highest allocation from ICC for the top three revenue contributors — India, Australia and England. Meanwhile, ICC chairman Shashank Manohar is keen to implement an equal revenue model for all so that underprivileged cricket nations can come on even terms.
BCCI has not announced its squad for the upcoming ICC Champion’s Trophy, which was due on 25 April, and wants to postpone the financial and governance change meeting which was supposed to be held today (26 April) in Dubai. Speculations are rife that BCCI will pull out of the Champions Trophy to be held in June and ICC won’t be able to survive the financial onset.
The proposed financial changes are important for the development of Ireland and Afghanistan who are likely to get Test status by 2019, and BCCI expects ICC’s cost for the development of these associate nations will come down by $100 million.
“The ICC chairman doesn’t decide the revenue share of the countries. We are still working on the revenue model with all nations. We won’t get back to ICC as we don’t even consider it as an offer,” PTI quoted a BCCI official as saying.
BW Reporters
The author is a correspondent with BW Businessworld with keen interest in HR and employee welfare.
