Monday, 16 March 2009

ICC to give $750,000 per match for 2011 World Cup, profit's share

By Qaiser Mohammad Ali

New Delhi: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has raised the per-match expenditure by $25,000 for the 2011 World Cup even as the Asian organisers try to make up for lost time, a top central organising committee (COC) official has disclosed.

“The four boards [India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh] will get two kinds of money from the ICC: one is the hosting fees, which has been increased from $500,000 to $750,000 per match. Plus, they will get the share of the profit from the tournament as per an agreed formula. We are quite happy with that,” Salim Altaf, the chief operating officer of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and key member of the COC, told me. This decision was taken a meeting between ICC and COC.

Another positive for the organisers was that the ICC has agreed to “water down” some of its stringent rules for organising the World Cup, to be held in February-April 2011. Altaf disclosed that the issues like ambush marketing, tax, custom exemption and waivers etc., which were part of the Host Submission Document (HSD) as part of the joint bid, have made the four boards worried. These were raised at the meeting, headed by COC chairman Sharad Pawar. “There were some obligations that caused concern in previous meetings too – that some of them cannot be met. So, Sharad sahib said that a sub-committee should be formed and it should highlight these issues, tell the four boards about them and then sort it out with ICC,” said the 64-year-old administrator.

Altaf revealed that the ICC was willing to address the organisers’ concerns. “It said that some of the stringent obligations it was demanding could be watered down. One obligation is ambush marketing. ICC says the city hosting World Cup matches should be clean, meaning if the world body has tied up with Pepsi, there should be no other soft drink [advertisements] in the whole city. That is practically not possible. ICC said that it would water it down. There are some other things that we will highlight and go back to ICC,” he said.

“Then there is the issue of venue inspection. BCCI has said that it should be left to them. They said they would be able do the inspection and would ensure they meet the international criteria and standards.”

In all, there will be 49 matches at 15 venues – eight in India, four in Pakistan, two in Sri Lanka and one in Bangladesh. The first match is on February 19.

Altaf said that the central World Cup secretariat would start functioning at Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium from March 1 while a mini secretariat will be opened in New Delhi. “We are on overtime, as they say. The moment the operational plan comes, we will be on our toes from March 1 -- because we have to deliver,” he said, admitting that the organisers are almost a year behind schedule.

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