Ambush contracting

It takes a certain genius to completely mess up what on the face of it is a straightforward issue. Judged by that yardstick, the ICC - vide the ongoing face off with players over the contracts issue -- is genius personified.

Check out an ICC release dated July 12, 2002. It relates to a meeting of cricket captains under the ICC's aegis, at Lord's on July 15.

Zimbabwe, New Zealand, India, England, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa and Pakistan sent their skippers; Darren Lehmann represented Australia, and Carl Hooper of the West Indies was the only absentee.

Our own Sunil Gavaskar was in the chair. Those making presentations included the likes of Chief Executive Malcolm Speed, General Manager-Cricket David Richardson and Lord Condon, Director of the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit.

The meeting, we are told, was a rare opportunity for the governing body and the game's most senior and influential players to exchange ideas and experiences.

On the agenda were issues such as the image of the game, the volume of international cricket played, illegal bowling actions, playing conditions and the implementation of anti corruption measures.

Speed was very clear in his mind about the whole thing. This is what he said: "Over the past 12 months the ICC has regularly sought the views of the captains on matters such as standards of on-field behaviour, the new umpires and referees panels and Lord Condon's proposals to combat corruption. That feedback has been important in shaping decisions made by the ICC in recent times.

"We recognise that captains should have direct input into how the game is played and managed, and this meeting provides the opportunity for that dialogue to take place with the majority of the team leaders present."

Didn't it, just! Considering the crowded international calendar these days, it was very commendable that a window of time, and opportunity, was found to bring nine national representatives together.

One question occurs to me: Did the ICC top brass, either in this meeting or the similar one in 2001, bring up the question of these contracts?

Did the ICC present these contracts to the captains and seek their views?

No.

Uh oh.

The ICC, and representatives of member boards, signed the contracts in the year 2000. Two years have passed since then, but in all this time, the ICC never even thought of checking with the players.

At one point in the ongoing war of words, Speed says: "To my knowledge no player or his manager at any stage sought the view of the ICC as to the restrictions that would be in place before they signed these agreements."

The ICC CEO is puzzled over why the row has broken out now, at this late stage. How come, he asks peevishly, these players did not, individually, come to me before signing their various endorsement contracts to find out if the provisions of those contracts were okay with the ICC?

He has to be kidding, right?

Was each player and his manager/agent, when negotiating with a sponsor, supposed to fly over to wherever Speed was with a draft copy of the contract, and ensure that it all meets with the governing body's approval?

The same Speed, and the body he heads, did not however find it necessary to take the players into confidence on the provisions of a contract the ICC has signed with member boards. Not when the contract was signed, not in the two years that have elapsed since then.

Which is easier - for each player to check back with the ICC each time he signs a contract, or for the ICC, when signing off on something that could impact on players' livelihoods, to take the captains into confidence, see what they think, and leave it to them to carry their players with them?

If the issue had been tabled in July this year (never mind July 2001, the earlier captains' conference), players would have known the specifications of the ICC's new contract.

If they had an issue with the one-month-before one-month-after part of the obligation, they could have negotiated, and both sides of the dispute would have had time to resolve the issue.

More significantly, had players been aware of this clause, they could have gone back to their sponsors, well ahead of time, and amended their existing contracts.

All it would have taken was the insertion of one para in the fine print: "In the event this sponsorship between Player X and Company Y clashes with an official sponsorship entered into by the ICC, Player X may be exempted from his obligations to Company Y for the duration of the tournament."

That would have done it, without need for heartburn on either side.

But that would have been too simple for the ICC to have thought of.

The controversy, meanwhile, has boiled down to 'will he won't he will he join the dance' lines, revolving around certain stars. And a key aspect has, in the process, been given the go-by.

Dr A C Muthaiah, the BCCI president when these contracts were entered into, says that the clause prohibiting players from working with their sponsors for a month before, and a month after, a tournament was not part of the document he signed on behalf of the BCCI.

On the face of it, the statement accuses the ICC of perpetuating a fraud - by getting boards to agree to one thing, and then slipping in other clauses.

It pays to remember that the real sticking point in the controversy is the one-month-before, one-month-after phase - which effectively means that a player who has entered into a 12-month contract with a sponsor cannot honour that contract for about two and a half months, closer to three.

Had the issue been about players not endorsing individual sponsors during the duration of the tournament proper, the issue could have been resolved with far less fuss - it is the lengthening of the prohibition on either side of the tournament that is causing heartburn.

And now, if Muthaiah is to be believed (and why would he need to lie?), this was not a clause entered into by the BCCI, as represented by Muthaiah himself at the time.

Signed contracts are a matter of record, they will be on file at the ICC's headquarters. Surely, when directly accused of fraud - and Muthaiah's statement is tantamount to no less -- the ICC needed to have responded? Surely it needed to have produced the contract circa 2000, and shown the cricketing world what it contained and what it did not?

If the original contract did not contain this clause, surely the ICC owes us all an explanation about when it was inserted, and by whom?

And finally, if the boards did not see this clause, much less agree to it, then surely there is no reason on earth, legal or otherwise, for the boards now to force their players to comply?

An intriguing sidelight lies in the fact that when Muthaiah signed the 2000 contract, the ICC president was -- guess who? -- Jagmohan Dalmiya. Who, till date, has not reacted to Muthaiah's latest statement. Nor has Dalmiya's successor as ICC president, Malcolm Gray. Nor has ICC CEO Speed.

Another question hovering over the ICC, which is equally applicable to the BCCI, is this: If the board did in fact agree to the anti-ambush marketing clause way back in 2000, how come it never informed its players?

A lot of marketing contracts are negotiated annually. Had the players been in the loop, they could in turn have ensured, when working on the fine print of their individual contracts, that nothing they signed would conflict with official rules.

To take one instance, Virender Sehwag was not even playing when the BCCI signed this contract. Since that date, he came on the international scene, and has now established himself as a regular. In the process, he has signed advertising contracts that are now in conflict with the official ICC contract.

Had he known the terms and conditions ahead of time, would he now be in this bind?

It's ironic, really - the contract, meant to block ambush marketing, has itself been sprung from ambush on the players.

Tim May had a point when he said: "The ICC owns the game, but it does not own the players."

Neither the ICC, nor the BCCI, appears to have been listening, though.

In passing: How come the BCCI is the only board to talk of dropping players over this issue?

Complete Coverage of the ICC Contract Row

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