One day after Lalit Modi announced that the proposed Twenty20 Champions League would go ahead, with or without England, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said that they were in no mood to give in to Modi’s demands, adding that they still hadn’t decided whether they would attend a meeting called by the BCCI on Wednesday to discuss details of the venture.Modi said that the BCCI will now host the Champions League, scheduled for England initially, in three cities — Jaipur, Mohali and Delhi — and that two teams from all Test playing nations would be part of the tournament. But England may or may not be part of it, as they haven’t agreed to the BCCI’s terms.The ECB and the BCCI failed to agree on two major issues: The Indian board asking for a straight cut of 50 percent from the total rights of the tournament and also demanding a blanket ban on any team involving the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) players. There are indications that the ECB might still be willing to discuss money, but they are not ready to accept “rules and regulations that do not allow them to abide by the laws of United Kingdom and European Union”.Colin Gibson, head of the England board’s corporate communications, said, “We have said that we are happy to play in any event which allows us to abide by the law of the land and the EU. We cannot accept rules and regulations that do not allow us to abide by those laws,” indicating that they would not send teams unless the Indian board changed their stance on teams that have ICL players.England’s stanceThe England board is unwilling to give into the BCCI’s demands as there are ICL players who had been signed by counties before November 2007, when the decision to term the league ‘rebel’ was taken.“We have stressed that we do not approve of unauthorised cricket. But in law, you cannot take action retrospectively. From November 2, 2007, going forward, we have said that players should not become involved in unauthorised leagues or games. “The initial statement of Champions League in March was that players who had played in unauthorised cricket should not be allowed to play in Champions League and that in future years, teams containing ICL players could be excluded. This position seemed reasonable, but seems to have changed.”The ECB has now decided to organise its own tournament in UAE with the royal family of Abu Dhabi bankrolling it and Texas billionaire Allen Stanford’s privately sponsored Twenty20 tournament also a part of the project.
