Image courtesy of: Zimbio
According to sources, the BCCI are primed to receive nearly a third of the ICC’s revenue.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) secretary Sanjay Patel has announced that India definitely deserve to get more of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) revenue, given the commercial impact they have on the sport.
The BCCI, England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and Cricket Australia, who have been dubbed as the ‘Big Three’, proposed that they should all receive a larger amount of the ICC’s revenue in the ‘position paper’ they drafted.
The ‘Big Three’ also included clauses about a new model of governance and a change in the structure of the Future Tours Programme (FTP).
“(One) who is contributing more should get more than what they get,” Patel said. “Earlier we used to get only 4%, though we were responsible for generating more than 60-70% of the total revenue. So in that aspect, it is absolutely fair (to demand more) and by taking the governance model and joined with that, we are expecting the overall gross revenue will more than double within this cycle (2015-2023). The cricket part can be taken care of by utilising the well-generated revenue with good governance.”
However, despite all the criticism that the ‘Big Three’ have been subjected to, Patel believes all the changes included in the ‘position paper’ are “positive” and have nothing to do with them being the most powerful cricket boards.
“We are quite okay with the position paper,” he said. “There were a lot of misconceptions about the paper and it was a very good position paper whereby we were considering the Indian position in a real perspective rather than what has come out.
“I would like to say one thing – it has been mentioned that it is a power game that we are playing, but it was absolutely nothing regarding power. The role of leadership required at the ICC is to be provided by three big contributors, India, England and Australia. Since ours is a major contribution, in terms of cricket and financial things, it has been agreed by almost all of us [Full Members] regarding the financial concept of what we are claiming.”
Patel also made it crystal clear that none of the other ICC members protested about the changes that were included in the ‘position paper’.
“It was not a protest. Do not call it a protest. It is a deliberation they required, so complete freedom was provided to all members to discuss and learn,” Patel said. “There were two different meetings ranging between five-six hours and later at least some members preferred to go back to their Board and inform them about the reality. But, principally the entire issue of financial models, leadership and the governance has been accepted by all of them.”