ICC facing fight to get Patel as new chief

JOHANNESBURG—Imtiaz Patel’s appointment as the next chief executive of the International Cricket Council (ICC) is “not a done deal” according to his current employers, the SuperSport television company in South Africa.
“Nothing has been formalised yet,” SuperSport spokesman Guy Hawthorne said Tuesday. “It’s a personal issue for Imtiaz but it is something the Multichoice board will get involved in. They won’t want to lose a man of his calibre.” Multichoice is the parent company of SuperSport.
Patel was not at his desk Tuesday and could not immediately be contacted on his mobile phone. Patel, 43, has been chief executive of SuperSport since 2005 and if he takes up the ICC job he will bring wide experience of the high-finance world of television sports coverage after being involved in some of the biggest deals in South African sports history.
The ICC announced from their Dubai headquarters on Monday that Patel was the preferred candidate to take over from Australian Malcolm Speed at the end of June. Patel joined SuperSport in 2000 after a stint as director of professional cricket with the United Cricket Board of South Africa.
He was thought to be the logical successor to Ali Bacher as chief executive but moved to the television company when he felt his path to the top job was being blocked. Gerald Majola subsequently was appointed to head South African cricket.
Under Patel’s leadership, SuperSport, a subscription channel, have changed the sporting landscape in South Africa. The company holds the rights to virtually all major sporting events in the country. In June 2007, SuperSport acquired the rights to local football for 1.6-billion rand (200-million dollars) over five years, wresting them from the national free-to-air station SABC. The deal caused outrage among football fans and was criticised in parliament, although the row was resolved when SABC were allowed to screen 143 matches a year. In February, SuperSport tied up the rights to local rugby matches until 2015. Patel, a former school teacher and first league cricketer, has hands-on experience of administration in major sports through SuperSport’s ownership of a professional soccer club and financial stakes in two professional rugby franchises and a cricket franchise.
he International Cricket Council may have jumped the gun while announcing the name of Imtiaz Patel for the chief executive’s job. Patel, the CEO of SuperSport, indicated on Tuesday that he is yet to accept the offer, made on Monday, and said he will consider his position “very carefully in the coming weeks.” A statement from him was released on the SuperSport website, shortly after its spokesman told Cricinfo the deal had not been finalised and Patel was weighing his options.
In his carefully-worded statement, Patel said he was “humbled the ICC has stated that it will invite me to fulfill such an important role within cricket.” “I enjoy a most rewarding and happy career in my current role as CEO of SuperSport, which is a dynamic organisation within a wonderful international group. I will therefore be considering my position very carefully during the coming weeks and will be engaging in discussions with the ICC during this period.”
Patel said that he would comment further on the issue only after finalising his plans to protect the “interests of the confidentiality of all candidates.” His colleague Guy Hawthorne, the Supersport spokesperson, confirmed that Patel was still weighing his options. “He has been offered the chief executive’s job by ICC, but he hasn’t agreed yet,” Hawthorne told Cricinfo. “The terms between ICC and Patel have not been agreed upon yet, and nothing has been finalised. Patel is still weighing his options.”
“We hope he will stay back with us and we will try our best to ensure that he does. Of course, this is Patel’s personal decision and it’s between him and the ICC. But as of now, at Supersport, it’s business as usual, and Patel remains the chief executive,” Hawthorne said. On Monday, ICC president-elect David Morgan said in Dubai that they were in the process of “negotiating the details with Patel before he can be officially appointed” to replace Malcolm Speed, who has been the chief executive since 2001.—Agencies