BCCI-ICC tussle continues over new revenue model

MUMBAI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India ( BCCI) has rejected a new offer from the ICC chairman Shashank Manohar, wherein he proposed to sweeten the deal for the Indian board with an additional $100 million.

Manohar — the first independent chairman of the governing body — has been in the driver seat to push the proposed financial and organisational reforms that significantly reduces Indian board’s income. Naturally, he had been facing a roadblock from BCCI, the richest cricket board in the world.

In the latest development, Manohar tried to compensate BCCI with an additional $100 million, which would take up BCCI’s share in the new revenue model from proposed $290 million to $390 million. However, it is still far lower than existing structure, where BCCI is set to earn anything between $540-570 million.

Hence, playing the hardball ahead of the crucial vote for the proposed changes, BCCI’s representatives — joint secretary Amitabh Choudhary and CEO Rahul Johri — rejected the proposal. News service PTI quoted a senior BCCI official (who is present in Dubai for an ICC meeting), saying Manohar gave BCCI an offer of an additional $100 million in the new financial model and gave us a deadline to get back. “From our end, we won't get back to him as we don't even consider it an offer,” he said.

Both Johri and Choudhary could not be reached till filing of this report, but BCCI sources have told ET that the board has not decided to pull out of the upcoming Champions Trophy, yet. “No such decision has been taken yet. Yes, the proposed formula is not acceptable to us and it (pulling out of Champions Trophy) cannot be ruled out completely, but nothing has been decided yet,” he emphasised.

Incidentally, Manohar cannot decide on the share from the revenue pie as it has to be decided by the member boards and BCCI representatives are currently busy in building consensus in their favour. For the record, the proposed revenue model significantly reduces BCCI’s share to $290 million over 2015-2023. Even the Supreme Court-appointed committee of administrators had found Manohar’s proposal unacceptable.

Meanwhile, BCCI’s move of not announcing the playing squad for the Champions Trophy till Tuesday and deliberately missing the ICC deadline fuelled the buzz that the board may decide to walk out of the championship.

But the sources have clarified that under certain circumstances ICC constitution allows countries to name the squads post deadline. “They (ICC) cannot afford to not allow Indian team to play in the ICC,” the source added. Meanwhile, BCCI representatives are meeting with various boards ahead of the vote tomorrow.