An alternative for ICC? Modi reveals plans for breakaway body

Ex-IPL chairman looking to create new world governing faction for cricket.

SYDNEY: Former BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi on Monday admitted his involvement in a plot to overthrow the sport’s current establishment, aiming to create a new world governing body affiliated with the Olympic movement.

The ex-Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman, who is wanted by police over allegations of money laundering linked to a lucrative television deal, said a detailed plan had been years in the making.

“We’re talking about another cricketing system. There is a blueprint out there, it’s got my rubber stamp on it,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in an interview. “I say it for the first time; I’ve been involved in putting that [blue] print together.”

Modi, who lives in London after fleeing India in 2010 when tax and financial crime authorities raided his premises, has long been critical of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) governance structure and financial model. “We could take on the existing establishment, no problem,” he said. “It requires a few billion dollars, I don’t think it would be a problem to get that into action.”



His blueprint foresees a new cricketing world body affiliated with the Olympic movement and a rival calendar of events to the ICC’s, based on Test matches and T20s with 50-over ODIs dumped.

He added that an affiliation with the Olympic movement, amid growing calls for T20 to be included in the global event, was part of the plan. “I have been proposing that. The ICC will never agree to that; never means never,” said Modi. “That means they would have to do away with the ICC. It is a plan that one day, if I ever implement it, will rewrite history in sport.” 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 11^th,  2015.

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