The Federation of Int'l Cricketers' Associations, the umbrella group for player unions around the world, has been "sounded out over the creation of a rebel cricket organisation" by intermediaries working for Indian billionaire and Essel Group Owner Subhash Chandra, according to Ali Martin of the London GUARDIAN. FICA, which represents unions from seven Test-playing countries including the Professional Cricketers' Association in England, has been "approached by representatives of Essel at the start of the year to establish whether they were interested in the project." FICA is understood to have "walked away from the talks as it was not comfortable with their clandestine nature and insisted the subject was moot until the details were hardened up and presented" to the board. No conversations have followed since. While the news of a possible split in world cricket has "drawn comparisons with Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket revolution" of the '70s, it appears Essel's "ambitions are far greater," with a new global body being planned that would see control of the sport taken over at int'l and domestic levels. Both worldcricketcouncil.in and globalcricketcouncil.in were registered by an employee of Ten Sports -- an Essel-owned company -- in April last year and the group is understood to be "planning an expansion into regions such as North America and China" (GUARDIAN, 4/27). ZEE NEWS reported ending all speculations, an Essel Group statement clearly said that Indian Premier League founder Lalit Modi was not "linked to their new initiative in any manner." It said, "We would also like to clarify that, Lalit Modi has no linkage whatsoever with Essel Group in this initiative. Essel Group is independently taking up this initiative on its own accord." The statement also refuted a recently published story, which said that Ten Sports Network had been "registering certain entities, pertaining to Cricket as a sport." The statement added, "A recent media story, has falsely reported that Ten Sports Network has been registering certain entities, pertaining to Cricket as a sport. We would like to clarify that the same is not true, since Ten Sports Network has no connection to this initiative" (ZEE NEWS, 4/27).
