His audience is the Pakistani people who have been critical of him and the board he represents, over the spot betting scandal involving Pakistani players. He also knows how potent conspiracy theories play with his people; especially those involving the West. After all many Pakistanis still believe that 9/11 was organised and carried out by the CIA.
Ijaz Butt, knows that when his team returns home many questions will be asked of them by the Pakistani media. By attempting this publicity coup he hopes that at least his own job will be safe. But I am afraid the conspiracy hare will not run. No one, including his own people will truly believe that the English cricketers would forgo the possibility of becoming millionaires within the sport by ruining their careers, for what? A few thousand quid.
The reason the spot betting Pakistani players will be found guilty of corruption will be of course the evidence, particularly that provided by the News of the World. But what will the motivation have been behind their corruption? I have little doubt that it will prove to be the meagre (in sporting terms) salaries that Mr Butt’s cricket board pays them. They earn £35,000, while their captain earns over £100,000.
I feel sorry for those Pakistani cricketers who may face life-time bans. Nobody wants to see genuine talent removed from any sport. They must however have known that sooner or later their careers would be put on the line. The News of the World, which I presume Mr Butt considers part of the Western conspiracy against his country, may have done the sport a favour in the long run. However, the sport today has suffered the distrust of the paying public and wherever Pakistan plays, there will be that question mark hanging over their performance.
THE ECCB has given the Pakistani team a second home. Because of the troubles this poor benighted country is currently suffering under, no international cricket team is prepared to risk their players lives to the terrorists who currently infest Pakistan’s civil society. So the ECCB has offered our county grounds to the Pakistani Cricket Board in order that they can play home Test matches here in the UK.
On top of which our government has just announced that it is giving a further £70 million toward the rebuilding of Pakistan’s agricultural base following the floods that have caused such misery. This, at a time when great controversy surrounds the Coalition’s spending cuts, should not be treated lightly.
The sad fact is, is that Pakistan is riddled with corruption and the ordinary people know this. It is not a racist and bigoted claim but a statement of the obvious. But the ordinary cricket loving Pakistanis genuinely believed that their cricketing heroes were the one exemption to this stultifying and demeaning practice that so reduces their nation.
Is it any wonder that the personnel contributions made to the flood appeal failed to match those of previous disasters in other parts of the world. If the Pakistani political class care so very little for their people’s welfare, then why should the rest of the world?
Pakistan has received billions of dollars in overseas aid since their independence, but very little has gone on the building of any infrastructure worth its name. Millions upon millions of such aid has been milked off by the political classes to the detriment of their people.
ALL THE PAKISTANI CRICKETERS have done is to join the club of corruption that strangles Pakistani society. Ijaz Butt is like a cornered tiger lashing out in fear at those he sees as his persecutors. But he had better give concrete evidence of his charges against English cricketers. The ‘conspiratorial’ Western media can look after themselves, but his charges against the English team had better be solid.
My view is that this exhibitor of such cowardly traits should face the music from the Pakistani people and, if necessary hand in his notice. I bet his salary is far larger than that of the ordinary Pakistani cricketer: and he no doubt, like the rest of Pakistan’s elite, he has looked after himself financially and will not suffer the indignity that many Pakistani citizens are forced to do daily.
If world cricket is to relieve itself of the distrust of the public that athletics has managed to do, then the ICCB must act ruthlessly in the interests of the game in order to preserve its future. Unless they do this, then it will have no future and the young will turn to other sports.
Cricket exemplifies all human characteristics, but corruption is one it can do without. The characteristics the sport, from its very foundation, hoped to exemplify were those associated with commendable behaviour; the first of which was honesty.
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