ICC should fear breakaway plans — Lalit Modi

London: Lalit Modi, the man who created the Indian Premier League, insists he recently walked away from plans to create a rival governing body for cricket, but has warned the International Cricket Council (ICC) that this multi-billion-pound project is likely to go ahead and challenge its monopoly on the sport.

The Guardian revealed last Friday that Indian conglomerate the Essel Group, which is owned by billionaire Subhash Chandra, and its subsidiary broadcaster Ten Sports had begun registering companies and websites that carry similar names to cricket boards, prompting fears among the existing establishment that a “rebel” form of the sport — akin to Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket in the late 1970s — was set to be created.

Modi, who was removed as IPL commissioner in 2010 by the Board of Cricket Control for India, was immediately rumoured to be behind the initiative, something both he and media tycoon Chandra, whose Zee television network boasts a reported 730 million viewers in 169 countries across its 70 channels, have since gone on record to deny.

Now, speaking to the Guardian, Modi has admitted he was involved in discussions with Essel on the idea for “a number of months”, with the project having been drawn up for “years”, only to withdraw because he did not think it could be pulled off.

But he insists that the 64-year-old Chandra, who is worth a reported £2.6bn (Dh14.6bn), is the type of character who will press ahead regardless.

While Modi claims he is bound by a confidentiality agreement regarding details of the project, he confirmed that Chandra’s intention is not simply to set up a single unofficial tournament, such as his now defunct Indian Cricket League, which folded in 2009 after two seasons, but create a whole new global governing body for cricket that will feature both the Twenty20 and Test formats and reach out to smaller nations.

He believes a number of current global cricket stars are already aware of their intentions and interested, with wages set to be no issue.

“I looked at the plan and discussed it. We had conversations for months — but I usually don’t touch something I cannot deliver, and this I cannot,” Modi said.

“It’s not something you can just do and launch — it will take years and it won’t happen overnight. It is not putting a tournament together, it’s about building the sport from the grassroots up.

“You have to understand Subhash Chandra as a man. If you do, you will know he goes after what he wants and he does not stop. Whether he will succeed is the billion-dollar question,” he added.

“Subhash is a powerful body no doubt, but it is a foolish plan at the moment. But he does what he wants and I wish him all the luck. It could be very close, who knows? If he presses the button and puts the money on the table, things could start very quickly. The ICC should be fearing him.”

Of huge concern to potential player recruits would be Essel’s previous track record, with the failed ICL tournament leaving around 60 cricketers and support staff £1.3m out of pocket when it collapsed six years ago. Of those, 12 have pursued the matter legally and the Guardian understands they are now close to a collective compromise payout of £270,000 — half of their original claim.

— Guardian News & Media Ltd, 2015