The International Cricket Council (ICC) must face up to the corruption risks both on and off the pitch that challenge the integrity of cricket by strengthening its own governance and by using its influence to promote high standards in national cricket boards. That is according to a new report from Transparency International, the global anti-corruption pressure group. Download the ten-page report here.
Deryck Murray, a co-author of the report Fair Play: Strengthening Integrity and Transparency in Cricket, and chair of Trinidad & Tobago Transparency Institute, the Transparency International chapter, said: “Cricket has a proud tradition as a by-word for fair play. To keep that reputation the International Cricket Council must start to implement reforms that will strengthen transparency in cricket and address the many corruption risks that threaten the game.”
Among the TI suggestions, it says that cricket needs a dedicated anti-corruption unit ‘that seeks to emulate the type of risk analysis, avoidance mechanisms and training that are typically found in leading businesses’. The report suggests separating the functions of the ICC’s Anti-corruption and Security Unit: “The ICC is the obvious home for such a body and can help to build similar units in the structures of national federations.” Also covered are governance, due diligence, protection of whistle-blowers, monitoring, and training.
Although much of the focus of combatting corruption in cricket has been in the area of match-fixing, Transparency International considers it vital that if the message of zero tolerance for corruption on the pitch is to be taken seriously everyone in the game, including cricket administrators, have to operate to the highest standards of ethics and integrity.
The ICC has commissioned two recent governance reviews in the past two years but as yet there has been no update on whether the reforms they suggested have been implemented. TI says that the ICC should take the following steps as soon as possible to achieve greater transparency and accountability:
publish information about its anti-corruption programmes and procedures
increase the independence of the Board and Committees, by introducing independent nonexecutive directors
publish progress reports of the implementation of the Woolf and de Speville reports
publish minutes and decisions of Board and Committee meetings.
Transparency International has sent a copy of the report to the ICC and its chapters in many of the world’s biggest cricketing nations will also send the report to their domestic cricket boards in an effort to stimulate debate and change. Visit http://www.transparency.org/
