Modi accuses ICC of bullying

'The ICC should not forget that if it is to triple its rights fee to a staggering $1.5 billion, a phenomenal percentage of that money has to come from India' © AFP

In an astonishing attack on the ICC, Lalit Modi, the vice-president of the Indian board (BCCI) and the chairman of its marketing committee, has accused it of trying to force its Members' Participation Agreement (MPA) and its sale of media rights onto India and other ICC members - two issues that the BCCI is convinced are inter-linked.

In a column that appeared in the Times of India Modi claimed that the BCCI was not trying to arm-twist the ICC. " We are certainly not trying to show the world our clout ... We are only making a legitimate claim about the projected losses if we go ahead with the MPA in its current form, " said Modi. " We want to protect the BCCI and the players from falling into an abyss."

The BCCI had earlier refused to sign the MPA "in its present form" and set up a committee headed by Modi to suggest alterations to the agreement. The MPA lays down ICC guidelines on ambush marketing that the players and boards follow.

According to Modi, the ICC is playing unfair and is holding out on the media rights for the 2011 World Cup by saying that the BCCI can bid for the rights only if ICC Development International, its marketing arm, repeals its decision to restrict the bidding only to broadcasters. "It looks as if the MPA was framed only to tie our hands behind our backs, and then ask us to host the 2011 World Cup. Let me also make it clear that India was voted to host the 2011 World Cup by the member-nations and not by any individual. So, nobody should threaten anyone of taking away something that has been decided upon by an overwhelming majority of the ICC members.

"The cynics and sadists could not believe that India could organise the World Cup. We not only hosted one but two World Cups successfully within eight years. That saw the dismantling of other vestiges of the Raj. but there are certain pockets that still seem to suffer from the colonial hangover."

"There's nothing specific that's happened, in terms of an event, that prompted this. It's just that these are views I have held for a while now, and this [the column] was a forum to express them," Modi told Cricinfo. When asked if these were his personal views, or that of the Board of Control for Cricket in India he said, "These are my views, but I know that several others in the board share them."

The ICC is touting the new MPA as being more flexible than the one drawn out three years ago. Modi claimed that this was a weak argument as middlemen were involved in the deal three years ago and neither the boards nor the players could do anything about it. Since then the worth of the Indian board's media rights has leapfrogged from $40 million to $612 million and this is projected to hit the billion-dollar mark in the next four years.

"The ICC should not forget that if it is to triple its rights fee to a staggering $1.5 billion, a phenomenal percentage of that money has to come from India," said Modi. "That means there are bound to be areas of conflict between the Indian board and the ICC since both will be fighting for their market share in the same operational field."

Modi felt that the entire structure of the ICC needed an overhaul. "It's time we had a chief executive who comes from Afro-Asia, someone who understands the problems of a majority of ICC members and doesn't heed just the affluent alone.

He made it clear that the BCCI wanted total transperancy in the sale of media rights and hoped that the ICC would take a more pragmatic view of the situation than indulging in futile polemics.