What has PM Modi to do with the survival of the Pakistan Cricket Board?
If the Indian Prime Minister decides it is time to pull down the Pakistan Cricket Board, he can do it anytime. Or that is what PCB chairman Ramiz Raja believes.
What has Narendra Modi got to do with cricket in Pakistan? The question might baffle you for a moment. But then, if you think from the perspective of Pakistan’s former ace cricketer and currently chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), you would tend to delve deeper into the topic.
If the Indian Prime Minister decides it is time to pull down the Pakistan Cricket Board, he can do it anytime. Or that is what Ramiz Raja believes.
He voiced his concerns to this effect at a meeting of Pakistan’s Senate Standing Committee a day ago, stating that the Indian PM indeed has the power to trigger the collapse of the Pakistan Cricket Board.
Pakistan Cricket Board relies heavily on ICC funding
The reasons he listed are interesting. According to Raja, the Pakistan Cricket Board gets its funding from the International Cricket Council (ICC). And, as people in the know would agree, most of the money that flows into the ICC coffers come from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the body that oversees and makes decisions relating to the game in India.
While the ICC is responsible for 50 per cent of the funds that come to PCB, it also becomes significant that it is the BCCI that funds 90 per cent of the ICC needs. This in a way makes it clear that BCCI, which may be translated as ‘business houses that run BCCI’, are in a way responsible for the survival of the Pakistan Cricket Board.
So, thinking of it on these lines, if PM Modi decides that no funding should be earmarked for the PCB, the BCCI would agree and put a hold on funding, as it has a major say in ICC owing to the huge amount of money the international cricket body receives from the BCCI. If one fine morning, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi decides that PCB doesn’t have to be funded by the International Cricket Council (ICC) which is funded by the BCCI, it would be a foregone conclusion for the PCB, which depends a lot on that money.
Ramiz Raja wants local businesses to help PCB
Ramiz Raja’s words are not to be swept off as just another concern of his. The cricketing world is aware of the fact that the Board of Control for Cricket in India has a major role in keeping other cricket bodies, PCB too, stays afloat.
The PCB chairman had always nursed this concern ever since he took over. With this in mind, he had even spoken to the business community at the Pakistan Stock Exchange earlier this week and had exhorted them to contribute. Raja had called upon the investors to help Pakistan transform itself into a superpower in the world of cricket.
Feature Image: Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India, GODL-India https://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/Gazette_Notification_OGDL.pdf, via Wikimedia Commons
