Non-Full Members to gain from proposed revenue model - Richardson

David Richardson, the ICC chief executive, has said that the new revenue distribution model, which is an integral part of the revamp of the ICC structure as proposed by the Big Three, will actually favour the Associates and Affiliates and not leave them with smaller budgets.

Speaking at the end of the ICC board's two-day meeting in Dubai, Richardson contested the view of former ICC president Ehsan Mani, who had predicted that the Associates and Affiliates were in danger of losing $300 million due to the proposed restructuring.

"The largest losers are the Associate and Affiliate members, who will be $312.5m worse off under the distribution proposed in the paper," Mani had said. Mani's remarks were part of a 13-page document in a point-by-point rebuttal against the proposals listed in the 'position paper', which was drafted by a working group of the ICC's Finance & Commercial Affairs Committee.

Richardson noted the new set of resolutions were yet to be finalised, but said that the proposals had more advantages for the Associates and Affiliates. "They will not be 300 million dollars worse off," Richardson said. "There hasn't been any agreement on the financial model at this stage. But in the proposals they are much better off than they were before."

Mani had worked that figure out based on $2.5bn revenue, as listed in the position paper, that would be generated from the selling of ICC's commercial rights in the proposed distribution model for 2015-2023.

On Tuesday, at the end of the first day of the board meetings that stretched into the late evening, an ICC release stated that one of the "principles" agreed was: "A larger percentage from the increasing Associate Members' surplus will be distributed to the higher performing non-Full Members."

Such a proposal, Richardson admitted, could raise doubts in the minds of the Associates, but his suggestion to them was to not misread the issue. "I can understand why from just reading the draft policy agreement people jumped to conclusions and thought they will be losing this money, but factually that is not correct," Richardson said.