ICC agrees to split roles for president, chairman

Dubai, April 16 (IANS) The International Cricket Council (ICC) has finally agreed to go for a constitutional amendment to spilt the role of the president by creating a new post of chairman who won't have any voting rights.

During its executive board meeting, held here Sunday, the ICC decided to go for the split roles and now the amended Articles will now be placed before the ICC Annual Conference in Kuala Lumpur at the end of June for consideration and approval.

A resolution to split the roles was taken in the last meeting of the executive board and Sunday the directors confirmed the necessary amendments to the constitution to split the role of the ICC president and chairman of the board.

The role of the president will be reformed after the Annual Conference in 2014 to separate the chairman of the board position from that of the ICC president. Until then, the current roles for the ICC president and vice president will remain, after which the vice presidency will cease to exist and a new post of chairman of the board created.

The term of office for the new ceremonial role for the president will be one year and will rotate, as it currently does, among the members. The president will not be a voting member of the board.

The chairman, who will be appointed by the board for a maximum of six years -- two terms of three years each -- will also be non-voting.

Until the president's role has been confirmed, the joint nomination of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for the role of vice president 2012-14 was deferred until the amended Articles have been considered by ICC Annual Conference.

During the meeting, the nominations committee reported that they have arrived at a shortlist of four candidates who will be interviewed in due course to replace Haroon Lorgat, the current ICC chief executive, who vacates his position at the end of the Annual Conference in June 2012.

The ICC also discussed the Woolf Report, on independent governance review, and agreed that, in the first instance, there was a real need for further discussion among the directors and members in an effort to build consensus.

The ICC said that in agreeing the split to the president and chairman's role and creating targeted funding for members in line with the Woolf recommendations, the directors were keen to begin discussion among themselves to develop a clearer understanding of the role of the world body.

'Change in any form is challenging and it would be unrealistic to expect immediate decisions. This was the Board's first opportunity to discuss the report and it is encouraging that there is a willingness to engage in difficult and significant governance matters,' Lorgat said.