ICC announces partners for Twenty20 WC in South Africa

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced partners for its inaugural ICC World Twenty20 tournament, set to take place in South Africa next month.


It has announced that telecom firm Reliance, real estate company Emaar MGF, handset manufacturer Nokia and soft drinks and snacks firm Pepsi are global partners.


Yahoo! is the official website and portal for the event.


Four South Africa-based local sponsors were also announced: Standard Bank of South Africa – financial services, South Africa Tourism, Southern Sun Hotels and Imperial Car Rental.


"In return for their commitment, I believe our sponsors will receive extensive value thanks to ESPN Star Sports' extensive rights agreements which will ensure coverage in more than 110 countries," said ICC CEO Malcolm Speed.

Further details of sponsor activations before and during the tournament will be announced in due course.

The trophy for the tournament made of 12 kg of silver-rhodium was also unveiled at the event.


The tournament begins with hosts South Africa playing the West Indies at the Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg on 11 September and culminates with the final at the same venue on 24 September.


The tournament is the first of 18 ICC events over the organisation’s new commercial period of 2007 – 2015. The period includes two ICC Cricket World Cup tournaments, in the Asian sub-continent (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) in 2011 and Australasia (Australia and New Zealand) four years later.
The International Cricket Council also today indicated it would not recognize the Indian Cricket League, though it said any sponsor was free to hold cricketing events within the country.

Speed said recognition to any new organization was only possible after consulting the existing member in that country, in this case the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI).

Speed said he had forecast two years ago that many sponsors would come forward to promote cricket in every country, and so he was not surprised that this was happening.

But he said that the Indian Cricket League promoted by Subhash Chandra had not yet applied to seek recognition of the ICC for hosting a domestic Twenty 20 series. However, if it did so, the ICC would first refer the matter to the BCCI.

Other criteria applied by the ICC for granting recognition included verifying who were playing in the game, whether the venue was safe from the security point of view, and whether the interest of the sponsor was charitable or developmental.

He said there was no reason to stop ICL from sponsoring a series within the country, but ICC would only work with BCCI. And he added that the ICC would not recognize a body which was only using retired players.

Meanwhile, Speed said the ICC had applied to the International Olympics Association for membership. Answering a query, he said that whenever approved, the Twenty 20 series would be ideal for the Olympics games since they took less time than the one-dayers.

"The aim was to keep cricket alive. If test matches proved too long, the one-dayers brought in the money. The Twenty 20 will bring a range of new audiences," Speed added.

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