'Our patience is wearing thin' - Tim May

[NickiSlater]

'Our patience is wearing thin' - Tim May warns ICC
Lynn McConnell - July 9, 2003

Tim May, the chairman of the International Players' Committee, is frustrated that the ICC is not prepared to acknowledge the level of support from players to have representation on the management committee of the world body.

May made his comments on the website of the Australian Players' Association. It followed the recent ICC refusal of the FICA request for player representation. This came despite the ICC administration putting forward a proposal with the recommendation that the players have a representative on the committee. The ICC proposal envisaged the Test captains, who meet annually with the ICC, providing a representative who would need to receive 70% support from a vote taken by the captains.

May said that the proposal was not about player associations and whether they should be entitled to a seat. Rather it was about players being able to have a voice on matters that affected them directly.

In a response to ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed, who launched a stinging attack on the aims of the Player Associations, and who made a point of saying that not all countries agreed with Player representation or unionisation, May said that lack of representation went against what the incoming ICC president Ehsan Mani said in his State of the Game address to the ICC Cricket Business Forum.

Mani said that the ICC needed to have a "willingness to respect all views", which included one of the sport's critical stakeholders, the players. "Their contribution is essential if the sport is to continue to move forward."

A vote on this matter had been taken last year of all the players who had gathered for the ICC Champions Trophy tournament in Sri Lanka – May says that 98% of the players were behind the move.

"The ICC decision not to recognise player opinion is puzzling. The ICC allows player representation at CC-P level [rules and regulations] but not at CC-M [management] level. Why allow player representation at one level and not the other, where both levels decide upon matters that can directly affect the players and such decisions may be enhanced with properly resourced player input?"

He added that an administrative decision, taken without consultation with players, had resulted in the chaos that emerged regarding World Cup rights issues last year that had the potential to cost millions of dollars.

May said: "The rights were sold some years prior to the dispute. There was no player consultation in the packaging and sale of these rights, yet a large part of these rights involved rights held by the players. It has been universally agreed, both inside and outside the ICC, that these issues would have been avoided if consultation with the players had occurred prior to the sale of the rights. That proactive consultation was and is 'good practice'."

Yet, by the nature of its decision to deny the players an opportunity to represent its opinion it would appear that the ICC would prefer to carry on as before, he said.

May also took a swipe at Speed's comments accusing the players' world association, FICA, of undermining all countries, instead of working with the countries opposed to the body.

"This again is puzzling, as during the 'World Cup and Champions Trophy Player Terms Dispute' it was FICA that the ICC turned to find pragmatic solutions to the dispute, thus ensuring player participation in these tournaments. FICA worked with those countries, sacrificed players' rights and saved countries millions of dollars, yet all that has resulted from an ICC perspective is even less support for player representation around the ICC table.

"The two main beneficiaries of the dividends of these tournaments [were] the respective host nations, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Yet, I understand neither of these countries supported player representation at the most recent ICC meetings. It hardly serves as an incentive for players to agree upon similar terms for the next ICC event."

While the ICC president, the head of the Anti-Corruption Unit, Lord Condon and the ICC's administration group had all recommended representation, it continued to be denied.

"You may wonder whether the ICC governs according to the greater good of the game or if in fact its decisions are based upon country by country political motivations. FICA will continue to work constructively with ICC administration to ensure appropriate recognition of player representatives, but," warned May, "our patience is wearing thin."