Giles Clarke used his final speech as the England and Wales Cricket Board chairman to highlight the threat of so-called rebel cricket and attack the Indian business giant Essel over its plans to create a breakaway league, despite being the television rights-holder for five Test-playing nations.
Essel was behind the now defunct Indian Cricket League (ICL), an unofficial cricket tournament that ran for two seasons until folding in 2009, and its billionaire owner Subhash Chandra has revealed he is planning another foray into the sport, starting with a Twenty20 league in India.
The project is being investigated by the International Cricket Council and among the details to emerge is a series of website domains that carry similar sounding names as cricket boards, such as worldcricketcouncil.co.in and cricketassociationofengland.co.in, that were registered by an employee of an Essel subsidiary, Ten Sports. That Ten Sports is the broadcast partners for West Indies, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and South Africa has caused tension at the ICC and now Clarke, who handed over a ECB chairman to Colin Graves at its annual general meeting last week but continues to represent the board at global level, would like answers.
“Recent events have uncovered a deeply disturbing plan by an Indian business, Essel Group, to set up another rebel league, reminiscent of the ICL that was owned by the Zee Group (which majority owns Ten Sports, who own the TV broadcasting rights of several ICC Full Members),” Clarke told the ECB’s annual general meeting. “That league closed several years ago amidst allegations, according to the media in Pakistan, Australia and India, of unpaid players and court cases alleging fixing of matches. These enterprises are controlled by one and the same owner, and the denials produced by their executives seem most bizarre given the plethora of recent new company and website registrations.
“I cannot see, as ICC finance and commercial chairman, why anyone should benefit financially from TV rights ownership on one hand, and then expect to be allowed to attack the game financially on another.”
The issue is already starting to impact on negotiations between boards over fixture schedules. England’s trip to face Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates this October – a series that will be broadcast by Ten Sports – will not be confirmed until Clarke receives a satisfactory explanation, while India and Pakistan are similarly at loggerheads over a proposed series scheduled in December.
