Anti-corruption chief calls fixers ‘paedophiles’
MUMBAI: A World Cup in India is rated among the best experiences in many ways, but it also poses massive challenges. While the World T20 Cup guarantees massive interest and profit, the main challenge for the International Cricket Council will be to keep the corrupt characters at bay.
It was ironical that the countdown for the tournament began here on Sunday with a message from the chairman of ICC’s anticorruption and security unit, Sir Ronnie Flanagan to remain guarded against the betting and fixing mafia.
“My drive is that at the end of these four weeks, when we know who has won the World Championship, we will be talking about cricket. We will not, I hope, be talking about corruption or anti-corruption,” said Flanagan, addressing the media at the BCCI headquarters. INVESTIGATION ON Despite the shake-up in cricket after the uproar over the recent cases of fixing in the IPL and incidents in other countries, the spectre of corruption still looms. Flanagan revealed his anti-corruption team was dealing with one serious case at the moment about an international team’s players intending to indulge in corrupt practices before ICC’s intervention.
“Quite recently, we had reason to believe that members of a particular team had intentions to manipulate the game in forthcoming matches. This is an international team, but I am not going to give any details. The case is still under investigation. The individuals, we believe, had intention to manipulate, to facilitate betting on those attempts.
“We decided in this particular case to intervene. We would (now) bring together the entire squad, focus on individuals whom we suspected. We would remind them and the entire squad of all the responsibilities. I am certain that our action in that particular case did indeed avert the intention of one or two individuals. We have taken action against them and we will be taking further action,” the ACSU chief revealed. END TO MENACE Flanagan said whenever he’s asked whether it is possible to root out the menace of corruption from any game, his stock answer is “can you completely eliminate ill health”.
Comparing match-fixers who groom players to paedophiles, he warned the younger players, not to be swayed by the attentions of anyone trying to corrupt the game. “Sometimes these corrupters are like paedophiles and all I mean by that analogy is that they are prepared to spend a long time particularly grooming young players. It might start off with some praise after a match. That might develop into the offering of a gift, which might develop into the offering of more expensive gifts which might then some evening end up in what we call the honey trap. We constantly educate the players and others about the methods these corrupters employ.” REPORTING APPROACH Flanagan emphasised on the importance of reporting an approach, but when reminded how players would be wary of doing that after Brendon McCullum’s case fell flat against Chris Cairns, he didn’t have a convincing answer.
For the World T20, every player will be given a booklet with the ACSU code and hotline numbers of anti-corruption unit officials.
Amir at the very early stage did make a video for us, where he admitted his fault and described the effect that it had. ICC has used the video for educating players.
SIR RONNIE FLANAGAN, ICC anti-corruption and security unit chairman