Opinion - Editorials

The cricket contracts row

ALTHOUGH THE EIGHTH Cricket World Cup is only about three weeks away, the contracts dispute between the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the International Cricket Council (ICC) remains worryingly unresolved. Failure to do so will mean the absence of India's best players, something that needless to say will cause an enormous amount of dismay in this country. The public interest litigation filed by six prominent citizens — which has sought financial action against the Indian sponsors of the World Cup if the squad chosen to play in the event is barred from taking part — should be seen in this context. On the face of it, it is difficult to see how an Indian court can intervene to resolve the contracts imbroglio. It is also by no means clear how blocking the release of foreign exchange to India-based companies sponsoring the World Cup is a justifiable way of dealing with a problem that is essentially about contracts between the ICC and the participating teams or players. Nevertheless, what such petitions underline is the importance of resolving the dispute over the ambush marketing clauses in these contracts amicably and before time runs out. The situation has reached such a pass that it serves no purpose at this juncture to point accusatory fingers at who should be blamed for this uncertain state of affairs. The issue that needs to be sorted out now is the Indian cricket team's conditional acceptance of the players' contracts. What the 15 World Cup squad members did was to sign the contracts and at the same time reportedly refuse to accept two clauses that relate to personal endorsements and permission for the World Cup's official sponsors to use their images for a three-month period. Needless to say, such a stance could hardly have been adopted without the BCCI's full backing. In the context, the qualified acceptance of the World Cup players' contracts may be viewed as a challenge issued by the BCCI president to the ICC to throw India out if it dares to. Jagmohan Dalmiya is aware of the importance of India, which generates the majority of the world's cricketing revenue, and his defiance and brinksmanship are based on calculations of the financial difficulties the ICC is likely to face in the event that India pulls out.

The question, however, is what kind of view the ICC will take of the altered contracts. Having climbed down on the ambush marketing issue ahead of the Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka a few months ago, there is bound to be a greater resistance within the ICC to doing so once again. Ambush marketing clauses are common in other sports and in a world where official sponsors shell out enormous sums of money to sponsor events they are an accepted mechanism to protect commercial interests. But since the very legality of the ICC's contracts has come under scrutiny and given that full acceptance of these contracts would entail breaking existing individual contracts for a few Indian cricketers, it would not be a bad idea to refer the whole issue for arbitration. Mr. Dalmiya seems well disposed for the matter to be settled by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland but it remains to be seen whether the ICC will be prepared to refer the dispute for adjudication.

At a larger level, the dispute is a result of the rapid commercialisation and globalisation of sport and sporting events — a phenomenon that has inevitably impacted on cricket. As in other sports, the bulk of the revenues from cricket matches do not come any longer from gate collections. In the age of satellite television and captive global audiences, they come via sponsorships by large, often global, brands. The declaration by the Indian players that they are prepared to refrain in the future from entering into any fresh contract with companies that are rivals of those sponsoring ICC events is a recognition that, in the long run, individual interests will have to give way to the more influential and organised commercial interests. The dispute here is limited — to find a solution to enable the Indian squad to play the World Cup, cricket's most prestigious international tournament.

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