Disgusted by idiots (English Cricket Board)

Member Name: opinions4u

Product:	English Cricket Board
Date:	03/04/03 (125 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Supporting a tyrant

I have previously written on these pages about the political situation in Zimbabwe. Subsequently, some may recall, I expressed my views on the Cricket World Cup and, specifically, the appalling situation the England Cricket team were put in by the decision of the ECB to commit to playing a fixture in Zimbabwe.

To summarise these points as quickly as I can, Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe believes in the redistribution of land from white families who settled in the country in the late 19th / early 20th Centuries and developed successful farms on previously uncultivated land.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of this policy (Zimbabwe's own Supreme Court has called it illegal on more than one occasion) Mugabe's methods are disgusting.

His "war heroes" from the battle for independence (late 1970s), many of whom are in their teens (you do the Maths), storm farm buildings, killing and injuring farmers and their families, as well as their predominantly black workforces. Many white farmers have fled the nation with nothing more than a suitcase.

The farms are then left idol. People starve. Not just in Zimbabwe, but across southern Africa, in nations that were previously able to buy food from Zimbabwe.

Those who oppose Mugabe have been killed by the thousand. There are also stories of farmland now being used to train Libyan soldiers. If there was oil in Zimbabwe, Saddam may have been lower down the list for the so called war against terror. Because Mugabe presides over a reign of terror suffered by the Zimbabwe people. Just no oil!

Despite this situation which has been ongoing for many years, the English Cricket Board (ECB) agreed to play a World Cup fixture in the capital Harare. Belatedly (a year after the fixture was agreed and a month before it was due to be played) the British Government raised concerns.

The ECB failed to act until a few days before the game, when they asked the
World Cup Organisers to move the fixture following threats to England's cricketers. The fixture did not, in the end take place and the points lost caused England to be eliminated from the competition.

If there is one thing we have in life, it is the ability to draw on history as a reference point. Recent history can be particularly helpful.

The situation is clouded further. World cricketing authorities have frozen a payment of £2.3m to the ECB which threatens the financial viability of the whole sport in England.

Additionally, Zimbabwe have threatened not to fulfil their commitment to tour England next month, further adding to the financial burdens on the sport.

But, a deal has been done to save this tour.

Personally, I am delighted that these talented cricketers will be visiting. They play entertaining cricket and, better still, are one of the few sides in the world we are capable of beating!

But, to my horror, I discover that the ECB has sold its soul to the Devil, by committing to tour Zimbabwe in 2004. A nation run by a tyrant who also happens to be patron of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union.

That is only 9 months off. Is the security situation in Zimbabwe likely to improve in that time? Is there likely to be regime change? Will opponents of Mugabe no longer find themselves beaten, tortured and murdered?

The only hope of regime change in Zimbabwe is a sudden discovery of massive oil reserves under the once fertile plains of the Breadbasket Of Africa leading to American intervention. It ain't gonna happen.

So, the ECB having already signed up for one game that could never take place has now signed up for a whole tour.

Not a word of comment from the Minister Of Sport in the UK. I suppose the Prime Minister has more pressing matters on their plate, but if the England soccer team had arranged a friendly in Baghdad last year, words would certainly have been spoken
within minutes of the announcement being made!

And, if we are now committed to a tour that simply cannot take place, where is the ECB going to find its legal costs and lost revenues when that tour is cancelled? Because as sure as banks will make profits, this tour will collapse on moral grounds or security grounds or simply players refusing to play there. They will lose their fees and their families will also suffer. But not close to the suffering of the people of Zimbabwe.

Any idiot can see that repeating the same mistake again is simply going to massively deepen the financial crisis they have already placed themselves in.

I can see no justification in the decision of the ECB to agree to this. Money is obviously the driving force. But better to lose a bit now rather than a lot later.

I feel sick to my bones that we have agreed to support a regime like Mugabe's in this way. I am ashamed of those who run the game. And while being a great admirer of Sky Sports coverage of cricket, I must ask them not to provide coverage of this tour if it goes ahead. If they do, I can vote with my subscription being cancelled. The downtrodden people of Zimbabwe do not have the same opportunities.

Disgusting.

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