ICC HQ may be shifted from Lord's

Lahore, Nov 13: The headquarters of the International Cricket Council (ICC) is expected to be shifted from Lord's in London, official sources said.

A two-day meeting of the ICC organization and control review committee is meeting in Singapore on Nov 15 and 16 to discuss the next location of the game's governing body, sources added. The meeting is also being attended by the newly-appointed ICC boss Malcolm Gray and his Australian compatriot David Richards, the ICC chief executive, who steps down next year.

Others attending the summit are: Sir John Anderson (New Zealand), A.C Muthiah (India), Ehsan Mani (Pakistan), Peter Chingoka (Zimbabwe) and I. Renee (Holland).

Lausanne (Switzerland), Dubai and Singapore are being considered as the next possible venues though a decision is unlikely to be taken in the two-day meeting. But official sources said proposal on shifting the ICC from Lord's was in the pipeline for quite sometime.

"At the moment, the ICC headquarters is divided. Because of strict England tax laws, the ICC has been registered in Monaco and half of the staff operates from there.

"The ICC officials are also contemplating changing the venue because the ICC is expanding and there is just one member from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in the institution," officials, requesting not to be identified, said.

The officials said England is the only country where the sports bodies have to pay taxes. He said it was precisely why the FIFA was operating from Lausanne.

"The ICC is a multi-billion empire. The taxes are so heavy that the ICC might end up giving half of their earnings to the tax authorities," he said.

England, eight years ago, also lost their veto power which saw Sir Clyde Walcott as the first non-English ICC chairman. With the decision to have ICC chairman on rotation and for a three-year term, Indian Jagmohan Dalmiya became the second foreigner to run the organization. Gray is the third ICC chief whose successor will be a South African in 2003.