General Discussion - T20 has spawned new corruption opportunities, says Lord Cond amaimu - Thu Nov 17, 2011 4:29 am Post subject: T20 has spawned new corruption opportunities, says Lord Cond
The proliferation of Twenty20 cricket has "allowed some really bad people back into the game", according to Lord Condon, who set up the International Cricket Council's anti-corruption unit.
The former Metropolitan Police commissioner, who led the ICC unit from 2000, also believes the vast sums of money on offer to elite players in some 20-over competitions tempted those on the rungs below to earn cash through illegitimate means.
Condon, who believes the ICC must have the "nuclear option" of nfl jerseys cheap ugg boots outlet ultimately excluding national boards who fail to clean up the sport in their country, told the Cricketer magazine: "Probably the greatest trigger point [in the rise of corruption] was the explosion of T20.
"The 'anything goes' party atmosphere allowed some really bad people back into the game. Some of the notorious fixers from early years started to re-emerge on the circuit in India, Pakistan, South Africa, Australia and the UK.
"It almost legitimised the bad guys being back around cricket again, and fixers were even seen in promoters' boxes and at matches. What up to then had been pretty tight and regulated suddenly became a free-for-all."
Condon added that Twenty20 "took away the discipline and rigour [the unit] had been enforcing" and that players were exposed to "lots of people making very, very big sums of money".
He continued: "I think the temptation was to do a little fix here and a little fix there and still win the match – and they were not seeing it as criminal."
Condon revealed he had suggested putting Twenty20 cricket in "quarantine" Vancouver Canucks Jerseys in order to contain the threat of corruption spreading. He told the London Evening Standard: "I remember saying [at an ICC board meeting in 2008] you've got two choices.
"You can either say T20 is such a crazy form of the game, you quarantine it. If current Test players go into that, they can't come back to Test. But that would never work.