Over the past few days, there has been a lot of tension lingering around the BCCI, not just with the election and restructuring but also with impending tension with ICC. The new schedule of events will be a very big problem for BCCI as this cuts the revenue stream of the organisation which is quite essential as it has to arrange a lot of other independent and bilateral series. Ever since then, there have been bidding wars different bidding platforms, like 10cric India, whether this new routine of World Cup every 3 years would be accepted or not. Needless to say, this rift has drawn public attention for quite some time now.
FUTURES TOUR PROGRAMME:
Before starting off, we need to know what FTP essentially is. FTP stands for the Futures Tour Programmes. It is essentially a schedule which is set up by ICC so that each team can play against another team once in their home ground and once away from their home ground during a period of 10 years.
The problem began when the ICC proposed a new FTP. According to that, T20 world cups are to be scheduled every year and the 50 over world cups are to be scheduled every 3 years. This proposal of having annual flagship events of ICC every year was vehemently opposed by the senior officials of BCCI.
THE DAY WHEN THE NEW PROPOSAL WAS TAKEN:
The International Cricket Council led by chairman Shashank Manohar and chief executive Manu Sawhney was lately very interested in pushing this new proposal of annual ICC events.Now, ICC Members Committee are ready to pass this without the approval of quite a few member countries, comprising of India, Australia, New Zealand and the West Indies.
It is also heard that while the Chief Executive Meeting was going on Sawhney had side-lined executives from the member countries to decide on FTP. It is presumed that this action of ICC is for the maximisation of the revenue stream.
THE PROBLEM OF BCCI WITH THE NEW PROPOSAL:
Ever since, the new FTP was announced in the ICC Chief Executives meeting, BCCI and ICC has been in a cold war. The new move was reportedly called “not prudent” in an email written by the BCCI CEO Rahul Johri to his ICC counterpart Manu Sawhney. The BCCI has major issues with this proposal on many grounds and the primary reason behind it is the revenue stream of BCCI will experience a significant downfall because of this new change. The problem was further explained as follows:
If the broadcast channels like Star Sports or Sony has a particular budget of Rs.100 earmarked for buying full broadcast rights i.e. television, radio and digital, in that the party which enters the market later will incur the loss. If the flagship events of ICC occur every year, then these companies will invest the majority of their money on those events, which leaves them with a very little budget to cover the BCCI events which have a lot of events scheduled under them independently. In amongst those important events, undoubtedly IPL gets a very special mention and also other marquee home bilateral series (without Pakistan)
BCCI CEO Rahul Johri clearly told that BCCI cannot accept the new fixture that has been made by the ICC officials, and also declared that they will not sign the Member’s Participation Agreement with ICC. Rahul Johri laid down a lot of reasons behind this disapproval as well.
THE FIVE POINTED EXPLANATION BY THE BCCI CEO:
One of them was that the BCCI elections are ongoing and the new officeholders will look into the matter and take the final decision. So it will be difficult for BCCI to provide with any solid decision right away. Besides, BCCI has a lot of other bilateral series and it is committed to pull those series off. Rahul Johri also told how the matter was not properly discussed with the fellow members. So, the decision not only “premature” but it also indicated how ICC didn’t follow procedures. The fourth and fifth point of the five-pointed explanation by Rahul Johri was how this move will have a drastic influence on bilateral cricket.
BCCI also shed light on a very important point on how the “workload” of the players are going to significantly rise with so many series and events to cater to. It was told that the “player workload management should be analysed and it is important for ICC Cricket committee to be involved in this matter”.
