Lalit Modi backs plan for breakaway cricket governing body

Former cricket boss Lalit Modi admitted Monday his involvement in a plot to overthrow the sport's establishment, aiming to create a new world governing body affiliated with the Olympic movement.

The ex-Indian Premier League chairman, who is wanted by police over allegations of money laundering linked to a lucrative television deal, said a detailed plan had been years in the making.

"We're talking about another cricketing system. There is a blueprint out there, it's got my rubber stamp on it," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in an interview.

"I have been involved in it. I say it for the first time, I've been involved in putting that (blue) print together."

In the past, while acknowledging involvement in discussions to set up a new governing body, Modi had insisted he had walked away from the project.

"The plan that I have put together is a very detailed plan, it's not a plan that's come off the cuff, it's been taking years and years and years in the making," he said.

Modi, who lives in London after fleeing India in 2010 when tax and financial crime authorities raided his premises, has long been critical of the International Cricket Council's governance structure and financial model.

He has voiced concern at the control exercised by India, England and Australia over the way world cricket is run and said he believed he could spearhead an alternative.

"We could take on the existing establishment, no problem," he said.

"It requires a few billion dollars, I don't think it would be a problem to get that... into action."

Modi was fired from his job as IPL commissioner in 2010. In 2013 he was banned for life from playing any role in cricket administration by the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

Last week a warrant for his arrest was issued by a court in Mumbai at the request of India's economic intelligence agency, the Enforcement Directorate, which is investigating allegations of money laundering.

Modi has not been charged and denies all the allegations.

His blueprint foresees a new cricketing world body affiliated with the Olympic movement and a rival calendar of events to the ICC's, based on Test matches and T20s with 50-over one-day internationals dumped.

"The plan conceives only of Test cricket and T20; it doesn't take into account one-day at all," he told the broadcaster.

"I think that is completely redundant in today's day and age. I think it should just be T20 and Test matches that should be played."

He added that an affiliation with the Olympic movement, amid growing calls for T20 to be played at the world's biggest sporting event, was part of the plan.

"I have been proposing that. The ICC will never agree to that; never means never," he said.

"That means they would have to do away with the ICC. It is a plan that one day, if I ever implement it, will rewrite history in sport."
Source: AFP