mikesiva wrote:Cricket West Indies are on the verge of bankruptcy, so they've shorn down the four day FC season so much that it doesn't make sense any more.
The thing that angers me about this is the players benefit from a system that they offer no payback to. As Brian Lara said, players use the national team as a stepping stone to big Franchise deals, and then bugger off. T20 cricket is supposed to be a growth business, but its become parasitic. You train the talent, provide the grassroots, and then we steal them paying nothing in compensation for it and all that investment in talent ends up supplementing foreign leagues.
The Franchise system is a mess too. How can the Carribbean's biggest Island not of had a CPL team for 4 years? The owner gave it back citing the fact the government wouldn't pay his bills, but why damn well should it? You can't operate as a private venture and invest to make money, then expect someone to give you a ground for free. He bemoaned the Jamaican government for not seeing the social benefits of paying to have an IPL franchise...... not a great argument when budgets for schools and government infrastructure are where the money is coming from. Thumbs up to Jamaica for putting the priorities of their public over vanity projects like CPL teams.
I think Jamaica are the only country that don't have significant public funding for CPL teams. If CPL teams requires government investment, then CPL teams should belong to the government. You don't get someone else to cover the costs while you keep the ticket money and pocket all the incomings. How did we get to the stage of parasites owning so much stake in our game?
Sadly, there system is so broken across the globe its hard to see where this ends, but no one will care. The BCCI will have its slap bag crap for 2 months a year, the players will make big dosh, the TV gets its grand competitions, and the big three will just play each other.....
Everyone else can get screwed.
