London: Plans to give India, England and Australia greater power in running the International Cricket Council have been blasted as &ldquo;entirely motivated by money&rdquo; by the judge asked to review its governance.
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2014/feb/N-Srinivasan.jpg" alt="" /> BCCI president N Srinivasan (right) with ECB boss Giles Clarke. Pic/Getty Images.
Last month the ICC said it had reached &ldquo;unanimous agreement&rdquo; on the outline of a plan to give the sport&rsquo;s most financially powerful nations &mdash; India, England and Australia &mdash; a greater say in running the world game.&nbsp;But Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South Africa have continued to object ahead of a hastily convened ICC board meeting in Singapore today where a vote to implement the proposals may take place.
Lord Harry Woolf, in an interview with yesterday&rsquo;s UK Daily Telegraph, said: &ldquo;This a really alarming position for the future of cricket.&nbsp;&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see how if we had this to consider we could see it as anything but a retrograde step,&rdquo; explained Woolf, who submitted his report last year after being commissioned in 2011.
Money-motivated &ldquo;It is giving extraordinary powers to a small triumvirate of three people, and everybody else has got no power to say anything or do anything,&rdquo; the former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales said.&nbsp;&ldquo;It seems to be entirely motivated by money.&rdquo;
Woolf said that, if implemented, the ICC would cease to be a global governing body and be more like a private members&rsquo; club.
&ldquo;The British and Australian governments might come to regret this power-grab by their cricket boards: if people in Pakistan see India growing ever stronger, they will resent the role of England and Australia.&nbsp;&ldquo;What it (the ICC) is going to cease to be is an independent body for playing cricket, and it is going to be what they would like to see: a members club &mdash; with a very small number of members.&rdquo;
As for the influence of India, cricket&rsquo;s economic powerhouse, Woolf said: &ldquo;They are the biggest generators of money and that they can say that should be taken into account, but how it should be taken into account is a matter of judgment.
&ldquo;There is a paragraph which says: It is proposed that the ICC executive board forms a new committee of the ICC called the executive committee, which under new terms of reference will act as &mdash; and I emphasise this word &mdash; the SOLE recommendation committee on all constitutional, personnel, integrity, ethics, developments and nomination matters, as well as all matters regarding distributions from the ICC.&rdquo;
Woolf added: &ldquo;I have never seen anything of that sort in a body of this nature.&rdquo;
The &lsquo;Big Three&rsquo; have insisted their scheme will benefit other leading nations, with England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Giles Clarke saying: &ldquo;All countries earn more through this proposal...How can that be bad for cricket?&rdquo;

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Former judge says revamp plan would make International Cricket Council a private club instead of being world cricket&rsquo;s governing body

Lord Harry Woolf slams ICC Big Three proposal

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Lord Harry Woolf slams ICC Big Three proposal

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