Modi had a questionable history: former ICC chief

Ehsan Mani, the former president of the International Cricket Council (ICC), was instrumental in getting a reluctant India to embrace the Twenty20 format. It was India's subsequent victory in the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa that popularised this version of cricket in India and led to formation of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

In an exclusive interview to Gulf News, Mani talked about his associations with the people who helped shape the IPL and where ICC went wrong in the process.

Mani is credited with negotiating the sale of media rights of the ICC as Director of the ICC Finance and Marketing Committee which in turn was instrumental in bringing in huge revenues to the game.

Extracts from the interview:

Gulf News: As the former President of the ICC do you think that the ICC should have had a bigger say in the IPL as foreign players were involved? Or should the ICC have just viewed it as another domestic tournament?

Ehsan Mani:  believe that the ICC should have had much greater involvement and control when the IPL was first set up. A large number of overseas players were signed up by IPL. The cricket boards who had invested heavily in the development of these players have received nothing. It has created a conflict between the national interests of these countries and its players. There should have perhaps been a tighter restriction on the number of overseas players per team. In addition, from the outset there should have been very clear ICC oversight on issues such as security and anti-corruption.

Was it during your term as president that the idea of IPL was mooted? Did you warn people about any of the participants in the IPL?

IPL was mooted after I had completed my term as president of ICC. During my term, BCCI's position was that it would never support T20 cricket. They told me bluntly that BCCI did not wish to participate in any ICC T20 events. I eventually persuaded Sharad Pawar and I.S. Bindra that BCCI should participate in the inaugural T20 in South Africa; they agreed with great reservations. India won the event and their whole attitude towards this form of the game changed.

After my tenure as ICC president, Pawar was nominated as ICC Vice-President. I met him and told him that I had concerns about some people closely associated with him and in his role he had to be careful to protect the reputation of the ICC. He listened to me politely but did not say much; IPL had not started at this time.

When and where did the IPL get out of hand? Do you think [Lalit] Modi has not abided by the rules that an administrator should have followed?

I do not think that the IPL ‘got out of hand'; it was born with a number of defects. All the Test-playing countries were being affected by the creation of IPL. As a condition for releasing their players, these countries, through the ICC, should have had greater involvement and ownership of IPL, including proper governance controls and transparency.

BCCI is the largest board in the world in terms of its cricketing constituency and certainly now the wealthiest. Yet astonishingly it does not have a professional management or even a full-time chief executive. It lacks a robust governance system. This creates issues of accountability to its stakeholders and transparency in its dealings. Modi is a product of this system.

There do not appear to have been any checks within BCCI which should have ensured that no one individual could have had so much unfettered influence on how IPL conducted its dealings.

My biggest concern about IPL was that cricket was being used as a tool to create wealth for the franchisees and some of the other stakeholders. My approach has been to always put the game first; in this case the money was not being ploughed back for the benefit of the game.

If the IPL is investigated and found to be corrupt, what stance should the ICC take?

The BCCI is the parent body of the IPL; the ICC will expect it to take the lead in this. But to do so in a creditable manner, the BCCI must ensure that its actions and conduct are totally transparent and issues are not brushed under the carpet.

Do you think Modi's arrogant approach is the problem or did it turn out to be beneficial in the initial success of the IPL?

Modi's record, before IPL was created, speaks for itself. He has had a questionable past. There is no doubt that he did a remarkable job in the way he set about creating IPL but he should have only been allowed to work within a framework of BCCI's checks and balances, which were clearly lacking.

Do you think the IPL has the potential to become more popular than the ICC World Twenty20?

Perhaps in India; I do not believe this would be the case internationally.

If the IPL is found to be corrupt, will it have an impact on the 2011 World Cup in India?

I do not believe it will have an impact of the 2011 Cricket World Cup. It will however have an impact on the credibility of those mandated to oversee the operations of BCCI.

Do you think that the anti-corruption unit should have kept a close watch on the IPL not only to prevent match-fixing but also to keep an eye on the franchise owners?

No; this was and is the responsibility of BCCI.

Personally, do you think that the IPL is good for the game or has it put extra pressure on the players and resulted in many injuries ahead of the ICC World Twenty20?

I have no issue with the concept of IPL. I do feel that it should be treated as a domestic tournament properly controlled and supervised by BCCI. It should not be allowed to take precedence over international cricket. There is a fine line that I believe IPL has crossed and this is harming the game.

Should cricket administrators in India have been allowed to become franchise owners in the IPL?

The BCCI is fully entitled to create domestic events and own them but, as I have said earlier, where there was significant impact on international cricket, there should have been greater ICC involvement. Until about 10-15 years ago there was very little money in cricket. The administrators were mainly volunteers who got involved because they loved and cherished the game. I wonder whether today cricket is attracting people who see an opportunity to use the game for their personal gain.