Faisal Shariff

ICC chief Malcolm Speed is in India this week, with his team of officials, to chalk out a compromise between the official sponsors and the Board of Control for Cricket in India ahead of the World Cup in South Africa next February.

A rights conflict between the official sponsors and the personal sponsors of players threatened the ICC Champions Trophy in Colombo last month. Players from most Test-playing countries initially refused to sign the participation contracts, with Indian players almost skipping the tournament, a fact that forced the ICC to dilute some of the clauses in the contract by way of compromise.

"We will sit with sponsors and talk through and find what they hope to achieve from the event, then marry that with the sponsorship interests of the players," said Speed, at a press conference in Delhi Tuesday.

Interestingly, the ICC's discussion will not involve the players who, as the affected party, believe that their interests have been totally ignored.

At the height of the controversy, the BCCI cut a sorry figure, with its president Jagmohan Dalmiya passing the buck on to the players, forcing them to engage in direct talks with the ICC while they were in the midst of a testing tour of England. The board did not even bother to send a single representative to discuss the issue with them.

"What prevented Dalmiya from flying down to England or sending a board official to hear us out?" asked a senior player.

According to some players, it is impossible to gain access to the board officials -- and if you do make contact, that official merely points to Kolkata and Dalmiya, from where all decisions emanate.

Speaking to the media in Colombo during the Champions' Trophy, senior player Anil Kumble underlined that integrity, rather than money, was the issue that sparked the player revolt.

Attempting to clear the misconception that players were refusing to sign the contracts because of the amount of money they would stand to lose, Kumble had said: "It was a question of principle. We already have existing contracts with our sponsors. As a matter of ethics and principle, we did not want to breach the contracts."

But is it really about some senior members losing out on some financial benefits? Are the senior players holding the other members of the team to ransom for their personal motives?

Senior players say no, arguing that the revolt against the establishment is an attempt to ensure that the younger members do not lose out financially in the coming years.

"Cricket will no longer have any takers if the ICC diktat on the contract issue is pursued," contends a senior player.

With the new clause that prevents players from endorsing products that are in direct conflict with official sponsors of ICC tournaments, like the World Cup and the mini-World Cup, sponsors have begun shying away from using players to endorse their products.

"Besides that, it will also discourage companies from getting into cricket sponsorship."

According to the senior cricketer, the younger lot of players like Mohammad Kaif, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and Parthiv Patel will be severely affected by the new ICC contract clauses that prevent a player from endorsing any product that is seen as a rival of the official sponsors, for a period of 30 days before and 30 days after the tournament itself.

"Why will a sponsor pump money into the game anymore? What's in it for him now? He won't be able to use the player for more than three months in a calendar year. It makes sense for him not to pay him for the whole year. The players' earnings will fall drastically.

"How can the ICC or the BCCI deprive the player of his right to earn? He has, after all, worked for it over the years, invested thousands of hours training to make the team. And when he gets there some smart Alec denies him his right to make some money through personal endorsements," argued a senior player.

Another theory doing the rounds is that the ICC, by locking the World Cup and the mini-World Cup with four sponsors for the next five years, will force other major sponsors like Coke and Samsung to up the stakes if they want to be associated with the major events.

Former Australian Test cricketer Tim May, chief executive of the Australian Cricketers' Association and joint CEO of the Federation of International Cricketers' Association, believes that the Global Cricket Corporation (GCC), having pledged $550 million to the ICC for World Cup events till 2007, is looking to get out of the agreement which in its present shape isn't worth half that money.

Though the ICC has taken its cue from the BCCI and refused to talk to that body, the fledgling Indian Cricket Players' Association (ICPA), recently launched with Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi as president, could prove to be the BCCI's nemesis.

As of now, the issue is heading for yet another showdown between players who have things to say, and administrators who do not want to listen. What are the odds that the issue will not develop into a conflagration that can burn official fingers in the weeks to come?

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