M Bose: Smith dilemma as Test matches face the great divide (13 Jun 1998)

13 June 1998

Smith dilemma as Test matches face the great divide

Mihir Bose

TEST cricket may end up partly on BBC and partly on Sky from the beginning of next season - with Sky getting the first two days an BBC the rest of the match, writes Mihir Bose.

This is one of the permutations being considered by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. Lawyers at the department are, I understand, discussing whether such a partial lifting of cricket's current status as a 'listed' sporting event, which can only be shown on terrestrial television, would be possible. The lawyers have been called in after Chris Smith, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, started having second thoughts on the recommendations made to him by the advisory committee he had set up.

This advisory committee had proposed that there be two lists for televised sporting events - an A list and a B list. The A list would have such sporting crown jewels as the FA Cup, the Derby, the World Cup finals and semi-finals, the Wimbledon men's and women's finals and the Olympic Games.

The B list, the committee recommended, would have Test cricket as well as rugby league and rugby union games, the argument being, particularly with regard to cricket, that these are events of longer duration and do not have the 'national resonance' of the FA Cup final or the Derby. Events on the B list could be shown on satellite television but highlights would have to be screened on terrestrial television. The committee had felt that their solution provided the best of both worlds and avoided the Ryder Cup shambles of 1995 when it was shown exclusively live on Sky with no highlights on BBC. It was this that provoked the wrath of the House of Lords - with the late Denis Howell in the vanguard - and re-opened the debate about listed sporting events.

Smith was initially said to be in favour of the advisory committee's recommendation but is now believed to be concerned that if cricket is allowed to move to the B list, Sky would get all the Test matches and they would vanish from their current position on BBC television.

Smith's second thoughts, however, have caused alarm and despondency with the England and Wales Cricket Board who are desperately keen to see cricket 'de-listed'. While they would still like cricket on the BBC, they want the right to have Sky as a bidder in order to get a good price for Test cricket.

Should Smith decide not to 'de-list' cricket or have a cumbersome halfway house, then the ECB might take the matter to court.

BRITISH athletes may have to take the Inland Revenue to court to prevent paying income tax on the money they are getting from the National Lottery.

They have now started receiving subsistance funding under the world-class performance plan of the English Sports Council. But athletes are concerned that the Inland Revenue may come knocking on their doors asking for a percentage of it back.

This worry led to a meeting last week at which Gavin Stewart, the rower who represented Britain in the 1988 and '92 Olympics and is chairman of the BOA's Athletics Commission, along with officials from the English Sports Council and other sports, met Tony Banks, Minister for Sport.

Stewart told me: "The minister listened to us with sympathy and asked us to present a paper setting out our views but emphasised that this was really a Treasury decision."

The Treasury decision may turn on how the Inland Revenue defines 'professional athlete'. The Revenue say that they may allow athletes who are not professional to keep the Lottery money tax free but the professional ones will have to pay tax.

Stewart says: "The feeling of the meeting and the minister is that some athlete will have to take the Inland Revenue to court as a test case to define what the Revenue actually mean by a professional athlete."

FOOTBALL'S World Cup is having a disastrous impact on cricket and particularly those who manufacture and market cricket equipment. According to Neil Patel, managing director of Centurion, who supply the equipment to cricketers such as Devon Malcolm, Clayton Lambert and Joey Benjamin, football's great festival will mean that the cricket market will suffer a 30 per cent decline in sales this year.

Patel says: "In a normal year the cricket bat market is worth £3 million, but this year we will be lucky to make £2 million. Already, and this is the middle of June, some bat manufacturers are having sales of cricket bats at a 40 per cent discount."

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)