The International Cricket Council (ICC) has decided to take action against the growing numbers of franchise leagues around the world.
The Telegraph Tuesday reported that the ICC is concerned about players preferring franchise cricket over international assignments. ICC understands the importance of international cricket and wants to control franchise leagues around the world.
During initial steps, ICC will enforce two immediate changes: a reduction in the number of overseas players to four per starting XI, and mandating T20 leagues to pay national boards for each player they can sign.
The reduction of overseas players per side will help ICC take care of the interest of several national cricket boards.
Richard Gould, the chief executive of the England & Wales Cricket Board, recently expressed serious concerns over the growing numbers of franchise leagues.
"The difficulty for ECB and our revenues is that we have so many mouths to feed, whereas the franchise tournaments can take the cream off the top, they don’t get charged for the players,” Gould told The Final Word this month. “They are very efficient models at getting money back into the players’ pockets, but they are not funding the pathway. We need to fund the pathway. We will always do that. Having a really strong, healthy pathway is the secret to long-term success," he added.
Earlier, several reports claimed that Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises have approached a couple of English players for full-time contract. According to the planned contracts, players will not come under the umbrella of their national boards, and their participation in international events will base on their availability from franchise tournaments.
As reported, the contracts, which are expected to be offered, could be worth upwards of £2 million a year and even as high as £5 million — more than five times the value of the highest England central contracts.
Currently, IPL franchises have their teams in the T20 tournaments of UAE, South Africa, the Caribbean and the USA's Major League (scheduled to start this year in July).
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's cricket authorities are also interested in launching the world's biggest cricket league, according to several reports. Reportedly, the Saudi government is in talks with the owners of the IPL to set up a lucrative new competition.
If players and their unions show interest in full-time yearly contracts, then soon cricket will step towards the world's football model.