The newly elected chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), Ramiz Raja, has made a stunning revelation that the Pakistan Cricket Board is operating on the funding of the Indian business houses and if the funding stops at any stage, PCB will collapse.
Ramiz didn’t say that there was any direct funding from Indian business houses to PCB, but according to Ramiz, PCB is dependent on the International Cricket Council (ICC) for 50% of its funding and ICC earns 90% of its revenue from India. So indirectly, it’s the money coming from India which is helping the PCB.
Ramiz, since the time he has become the PCB chairman, has been adamant about the fact that Pakistan will have to enhance its financial power if it has to have a substantial say in the affairs of ICC and that can only happen if they reduce their dependence on ICC funding.
Ramiz has been critical about ICC for not being strong enough
Ramiz was also critical about ICC for not being strong enough to prevent scenarios like the one unfolded in Pakistan a few weeks back where New Zealand cricket team refused to play in Pakistan due to security reasons and flew back home.
Ramiz insisted it was unacceptable from New Zealand as they didn’t share any kind of details that they might have had about the threat and just made a unilateral decision on a bilateral matter.
Addressing the senators in Pakistan on cricketing matters, Ramiz said, “90% of ICC’s revenues are generated from India. It is frightening. In a way India’s business houses are running Pakistan cricket and if tomorrow the Indian PM decides he will not allow any funding to Pakistan, this cricket board can collapse.”
Pakistan and India don’t play bilateral series against each other because of the cross border tensions. That’s one of the things which is hurting PCB real bad because the series against India might have been a huge source of income for them, given the fact that the Indian cricketers are global superstars and India and Pakistan are arch rivals.
