The ICC will be totally undermined by the ‘Big Three’: Ehsan Mani
View(s):A former President of the International Cricket Council (ICC), Ehsan Mani, is a vociferous proponent of good governance in the matters of running Cricket at a global level.
Mani’s association with cricket started in his early life in Pakistan, where he was playing for the Rawalpindi Club and Government College Lahore XI from 1959 to 1965 as a right-hand batsman and a left-arm fast medium bowler. From 1989 to 1996, Mani represented the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in the ICC. For the 1996 Cricket World Cup, he was on the advisory committee as the PCB representative. He was also on the same committee during the 1999 Cricket World Cup played in England. In 1996, he was elected by the ICC member nations to the position of Chairman of the ICC Finance and Marketing Committee.
PakPassion.net: You have always been outspoken against the influence of the ‘Big 3’ on the ICC. Has your stance changed in recent times, especially given a change in Pakistans position under Najam Sethi’s leadership?
Ehsan Mani: Absolutely not. It really does not matter whether it’s Pakistan or any other country that accepts this situation, the whole principle is wrong. My position would have been the same even if Pakistan was part of the initiative in the first place or had been part of ‘Big 4’. Simply speaking, what is being proposed is bad for cricket.
The whole governance structure of ICC has taken a huge step backwards. In the rest of the world and certainly in every developed economy such as the UK or Australia or New Zealand or for that matter even in India or Pakistan, corporate governance demands transparency in decision making processes and in the way moneys are earned and revenues accounted for. What is being proposed by the ‘Big 3’ lacks total transparency and is being mooted by people who have personal vested interests or who have conflict of interests and are a beneficiary of their own proposals. It is very disquieting as far as I am concerned and also for governance of world Cricket for this to be pushed through.
PakPassion.net: If it was one country pushing for this change then one could suspect some foul play, but here we have 3 members – 2 of which are well known for high standards of governance within their own systems? How would you counter that?
Ehsan Mani: To me, the 2 members of the ICC – Australia and England – are the real culprits in this situation. What they have done, because of their own self interest and in order not to upset India, is to impose standards of governance on the ICC which they themselves would not apply to their own organisations. If you were to compare the governance standards that the ICC has in place today with what these boards have, you would find a huge difference. So, it’s clear to me that the ECB and CA bear the most responsibility as to where cricket will find itself today.
PakPassion.net: The fact is that the many of the smaller nations are going along with the ‘Big 3’ which could be a result of a “carrot and stick” approach. How does that reflect on these nations?
Ehsan Mani: This is why I refer to the governance structure. The ICC’s mandate is to act in the best interest of ALL cricket playing nations and to promote the game worldwide and to expand it. Cricket will never flourish if 8 or 9 countries play the game at the highest level.
The ICC for years, and certainly upto and during the time I was president, had a priority to have a structural growth of cricket round the world. The idea was to bring in nations like the USA and China where they could start playing the game seriously and in the long term, they would produce huge amounts of money and resources for the ICC and its members. As we know, the American sports market is worth hundreds of billions of Dollars per year. Cricket gets excited over earning a few billions over 8-15 years or so which is really nothing. The fact is that cricket today needs a vision or visionaries and not intellectual midgets who can run the game!
PakPassion.net: The Pakistan stance on the ‘Big 3’ has changed between the tenures of Zaka Ashraf and Najam Sethi. Is this change of stance based on sound reasoning or political expediency?
Ehsan Mani: No, I don’t agree with the Pakistan stance. What the PCB is trying to do is to come to an accommodation and to take a pragmatic decision. That doesn’t make it right. What the PCB is trying to do is make the best of a bad situation. That is the bind it finds itself in today.
Unfortunately due to the structure and mismanagement of cricket in Pakistan, we find ourselves in a situation that at a critical juncture when this was happening and proposals were being mooted earlier this year, Pakistan had no leadership. We had one Chairman who had been thrown out, went to the court and came back. The other one went out and is now back again! This does not bode well for Pakistan cricket. This basically exposed two things here. One was that there was absolutely no depth in the management in Pakistan Cricket. So basically, you remove the top man and the policy changes, followed by another change in direction as a new person comes in as Chairman. That tells me that the governance of Cricket in Pakistan is seriously flawed.
The Chairman, in my view, should be no more than a figurehead who carries out the policy of the Board and oversees the implementation of those policies. What we have instead, is that the Chairman of the Board sets out the tone and policy according to his mood and way of thinking, without being accountable to anyone. The whole structure is wrong in Pakistan.
PakPassion.net: The issue of governance aside, do you feel that Pakistan had an option or clout to disagree in with the proposals set forth by the ‘Big 3’?
Ehsan Mani: Pakistan had lots of options, which I really don’t want to go into the details now. However, I will say again that they were options which Pakistan could have taken and could still take now, which could stop the whole thing. One has to understand that there is very little sympathy for the ‘Big 3’ at the moment. If you look around the world, there are no great former cricketers who came out and said that this was good for world cricket. Equally, one would be hard pressed to find any international sports writer who says that this is wonderful for cricket. They all know why this is happening. This is happening because of greed and self interest of these three countries. It’s also due to the pressure and bullying tactics they have applied on other boards to give in. So all in all, there is very little sympathy but unfortunately the leadership in all the boards round the world leaves a lot to be desired. They have weak leaders and they will compromise and appease people. As you know, the policy of appeasement is not the answer. As history is witness, this is the type of policy that even lead to the 2nd World War and that is the kind of stance which has lead to the position that the non-’Big 3′ Boards find themselves in today.
PakPassion.net: What future do you see for the ICC with the ‘Big 3’ in charge of its policies?
Ehsan Mani: The ICC will be totally undermined as long as these 3 countries are involved with the three individuals who represent these countries in charge. They are clearly not acting in the best interest of the members. Certainly, when I was in charge of the ICC, Pakistan was just another member country for me like Zimbabwe, England, Australia, India or New Zealand. There were no special favours granted to Pakistan.
My responsibility was to every country in the world including the lesser known cricketing ones such as Singapore or Gibraltar. These people (‘Big 3’) on the other hand, are there to make sure that they can extract as much in terms of resources for their own countries. They obviously have a conflict of interest here. The sad thing is that in 2012, the ICC itself commissioned a governance review. The representatives from Australia and England, who are there today, were themselves there when the Woolf Report was submitted regarding the governance of the ICC. There were a number of recommendations made by the review and these people have not seen it fit to implement even one of those. That tells us a bit about the agenda of these people and their motives which are clearly aimed at diluting the standing and authority of the governing body.
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