Kolkata: Cricket's quadrennial showpiece the World Cup over, the vexed contract issue is likely to resurface, with the International Cricket Council (ICC) sticking to its decision to withhold India's guarantee money from the Cup due to the dispute. "The contract issue was temporarily put on the back-burner because of the Cup. But now that the Cup is over, the process to sort out the matter has to start once again," BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya said. The dispute figured prominently during the ICC executive board meeting in South Africa last week, with some leading figures trying to pin India on the controversy. Though Dalmiya remained tight-lipped on deliberations at the executive board, sources said the meeting was 'stormy' and at one stage ICC chief executive officer Malcolm Speed even proposed that the BCCI heavyweight be banned from all its meetings. Speed was apparently peeved by a PIL filed in the Delhi High Court against ICC, and made a scathing attack on the BCCI in his report before the executive board. In his report Speed reportedly claimed that two directors had asked him to report to the executive board on the role played by BCCI in that litigation. Speed, however, failed to garner much support for his proposal to keep Dalmiya out of the executive board mainly in the face of strong opposition from South Africa and Zimbabwe, while other members rallied behind him. Only New Zealand Board provided some degree of support to Speed. The contract dispute generated much heat before the Cup, after the Indian cricketers refused to sign ICC's Players' Terms containing some restrictive clauses on personal endorsements. To ensure their participation in the tournament, ICC had accepted substantially relaxed terms offered by the players on the condition that it would not release India's guarantee money, in the range of $ 8 to 9 million, till the issue was resolved by arbitration. Dalmiya said that the matter would now be sorted out through an arbitration by the Court of Arbitration for Sports in Lausanne, or "we can sit together and sort out the matter". As for the cost factor, a BCCI source said it was forced to move towards arbitration as it could not sacrifice players' rights only to pave the way for granting some unilateral privileges to Global Cricket Corporation, which holds the marketing rights of ICC events till the next World Cup in 2007. Extras:
Wright&support staff likely to get the nod

Tags: cricket, world cup, international cricket council, icc, bcci president jagmohan dalmiya, icc executive board meeting in south africa, icc chief executive officer malcolm speed, icc's players' terms, c.