It's always very easy to knock the "fat cat directors", but there's no suggestion here that they have done anything illegal. So we need to be a bit careful about that. That's not to take away from the argument as to whether the right people are doing the job or whether they are being paid too much to do it - all successful businesses, and the WICB is one, need to keep a rein on the cost line, of course. But it's not clear to me who the people receiving these high per diems are accountable to. The easy answer is that they are accountable to WI cricket in general, but that's no corporate or legal answer and it will get us nowhere. One hopes that some account will be taken of the recommendations which Tony Cozier refers to, however, for the good of the WI and world game. It may mean that the people need to change: maybe they will even want to move on if they feel that they can improve their personal lot by taking their skills into the corporate sector. Whatever happens, I agree that something has to, or the world game will be much the poorer.

More concerning to me in this report is the information about the ICC FTP and who pays for overseas tours. I really had no idea that this arrangement existed up to now, and it takes about three seconds to see that it is completely potty in the case of WI, a region - not a country - where flight and accommodation costs are high and gate receipts (notwithstanding the horrible surcharge put on England's travelling supporters last time out) are generally low. If the WICB was accommodating the England team and management at anything approaching the cost I had to pay last time I was privileged to be in Barbados, it's no wonder they are going bust. Quite frankly, and without looking at all at the ECB's finances, if they, who have the highest ticket prices in the world by a street, cannot pay their own accommodation and flights, they are doing something wrong. I'm all for an arrangement which allows the richer boards to subsidise the poorer in the interests of the international game: it's arguable that countries such as Bangladesh and Zimbabwe would never be able to afford foreign tours to England without some kind of assistance. But it is silly to impose this kind of "one size fits all" solution as the ICC has. All rather depressing.

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Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan