India skip deadline for naming team BCCI DEALT BLOW AT ICC MEET — OUT-VOTED ON GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE, REVENUE MODEL
he Board of Control for Cricket in Indian (BCCI) was dealt a huge blow when the richest cricket board in the world was out-voted on governance structure and revenue model at the International Cricket Council meeting that is being held in Dubai.
The BCCI was defeated 1-9 when representatives of all other boards, except India’s Amitabh Chaudhary, who is the acting secretary of the BCCI voting in favour of a change in governance structure. The revenue model, which BCCI wanted was also rejected 8-2 with only Sri Lankan cricket board Thilanga Sumathipala voting in favour of BCCI.
The BCCI hopes were shattered by none other than their former president Shashank Manohar, who is now the first independent chairman of the ICC.
The BCCI was against the revenue model, which is set to bring India’s share down to half from $570 million (Dh2.09 billion).
Before the ICC made an official statement, a senior BCCI functionary in Dubai revealed: “The votings are over. It was 8-2 in favour of revamped revenue model and 9-1 in favour of constitutional changes.
The BCCI officials will now have to take the matter to the Special General Meeting of the BCCI and inform the members of the situation.
It is understood that BCCI was even offered an additional $100 million payout in revenue over and above the $290 million, which is a $280 million cut from the $570 million India had been getting till last year. It is understood that even that offer will now stand cancelled. What shocked the BCCI was that even Zimbabwe and Bangladesh whose support BCCI was banking on, voted against them. This setback is a big blow to the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (COA), which is running the BCCI now as the officials could not win over the other nations. Now one will have to wait and see whether India will withdraw from the Champions Trophy. The BCCI had taken the bold step of missing the ICC April 25 deadline for announcing the squad for the Champions Trophy.
Withdrawal threat
India thus became the only participating nation to miss the deadline as Pakistan, which had also delayed naming their team, finally announced the names before the deadline. All the seven teams participating in the Champions Trophy starting on June 1 in England and Wales have announced their teams.
As per directives of the ICC, all teams were supposed to name their squads by midnight Dubai time. India has however delayed its decision to announce the team since it has threatened to withdraw from the Champions Trophy should its demand to retain its share of revenue is not met during the ongoing ICC meeting in Dubai.
Members Participation Agreement (MPA) gives any cricket board the right to pull out of the tournament in case of disagreement. It is understood that ICC can permit a country to announce their team past the deadline under certain circumstances. In short, there is no provision for any punitive action against the BCCI for not honouring the April 25 deadline to pick the Champions Trophy squad.
According to information from India, the selectors have already picked the squad but they are waiting for clearance from the BCCI to officially announce the team.
As per the tournament rules teams are free to make changes to their submitted squads until May 25.