Outgoing Chair of the England and Wales Cricket Board Colin Graves has called on the ICC to review their distribution of funding to all cricketing nations to protect the future sustainability of the sport.
During a television interview during the lunch break of day two of the second Test between England and Pakistan, Graves was pressed on the issue by Sky’s Ian Ward.
After highlighting the fact England and Australia have lucrative rights deals, as compared to recent UK tourists Pakistan and West Indies, Ward asked Graves:
“Would you like to see the monetary playing field somehow levelled out, so you don’t really get into a situation we are getting to now, where you have the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’, particularly if we are to protect Test cricket?”
READ MORE: CRICKET IN THE OLYMPICS MEAN $500K FOR SMALLER NATIONS
Graves, despite downplaying his chances, is a frontrunner for the ICC Chiarman position after the departure of Shashank Manohar, was unequivocal in his reply, calling for the ICC to consider a fairer funding model:
“Yes, and I think there’s a way to do that. I sit on the ICC Board at the present time and for the last four years, and I think ICC can look at the way they share the money out from their pot because I’m not being unkind, the ECB, BCCI and Cricket Australia are not reliant on the ICC pot, they’re reliant on their own pot.
He went on to explain how he would like to see funding reviewed: “I think ICC could recut that (global) pot in a different way with all those countries to make sure they are sustainable because we need all the countries sustainable going forward, every one of them”.
Responding to ward’s follow up about his interest in the top job at the ICC Board:
“It’s not up to me at the end end of the day. The way the election goes, you have to be nominated, so if I don’t get nominated then I’ll be nowhere near it anyway… when the nominations happen, all I’ve said to everyone: ‘I’ll look at it and see where am I’.
READ MORE ON THE GLOBAL FUNDING CONUNDRUM HERE
FIND OUT HOW THE ICC FUNDS GLOBAL CRICKET HERE
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Article updated 22 Aug 2020 to include more of Graves’ exact quote ie “recut the pot”.
