Basically the ICC has determined that only the 10 full members of the ICC will be permitted to play in the 2015 World Cup, blocking all associate and affiliate members from qualifying. Granted, the associate members haven't faired terribly well in the few World Cups they have been allowed to play in (with the notable exception of Ireland), but for the top six associate/affiliate members (who are ICC sanctioned to play the ODI format) it means that they'll lose tons of money and experience that their programs desperately need to even hope to ever become full members. In spite of the fact that a couple of the full members (specifically Zimbabwe and possibly Bangladesh) aren't any better than most of the associate/affiliate members.
So what does this have to do with the issues we normally discuss here at Ink Spots? Quite simply, this really screws Afghanistan's team at a time when that country really needs some good news. I've written before about some of Afghanistan's recent cricket successes and while sports will not change conduct of the conflict their home is experiencing, the ICC is dashing one of the few shining lights (however minor in the grand scheme of things) of present-day Afghanistan. Admittedly, Afghan success in a World Cup will not bring peace or even full test status or revenue from ticket and television sales. But among cricket-playing nations, cricket and politics go hand in hand. Last year's IPL draft nearly caused significant political problems on the Subcontinent. This decision in itself exemplifies this - it appears to be taken mainly to protect the two weakest members of the ICC.
The ICC is a club - not the WTO or the G20 or the UNSC - but it's a club. A club that a lot of nations want to be a part of, because it does come with benefits outside cricket (for example, Zimbabwe's return to test cricket was seen as acceptance of that nation's regime by ICC member nations). While no one knows if Afghanistan would have even qualified for the 2015 World Cup, they won't even have that chance now and all because the ICC is looking after its own. In any case, this is screwing them and if there's one thing Afghanistan doesn't need it's getting screwed in yet another way.
In only very peripherally related news, Bosnia was recently barred from international football competition by FIFA and UEFA for refusing to reform the leadership structure of their national football federation. The current system demands that the federation's presidency be rotated among a Serb, a Muslim, and a Croat.
ReplyDeleteThe politics of union and globalization frequently interfere with sports in Europe, as you can see if you pay any attention to the debate about home-grown player quotas (which are considered by many a violation of Schengen labor rights).
I remember hearing that Iraq's soccer team had something like this happen to them a couple of years. They won a tournament in Asia and so they should have qualified for the World Cup but ended up not getting in because of paperwork being filed late/incomplete or something like that.
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