Federation of International Cricketers‟ Associations‟ (FICA) Chief Executive Tim May welcomed the International Cricket Council‟s (ICC) recent decision to review its governance structure, and called for the recommendations of the review to be made public.
ICC recently announced that it had appointed Lord Harry Woolf, the former Chief Justice of England and Wales, as chairman of the independent governance review of the ICC. Woolf will be assisted by members of the PricewaterhouseCoopers [PwC] Governance Risk and Compliance Team.

May said: ”We want ICC to be a strong, decisive, respected and independent ruling Body that encompasses good governance. Good governance is in part the commitment to seek continuous improvement, to review present structures and to analyze whether those structures are appropriate to meeting today‟s needs and challenges. It is pleasing that ICC has seen the need to review its present structure. The ICC‟s governance structure has not been changed for a significant number of years. Over the past 20 years the landscape surrounding the game has changed significantly – commercial, legal, new media, security issues, new formats and industrial issues now accompany the games’ new phase of professionalism and commercialism, and with it all, an unsurpassed level of scrutiny and expectation from all stakeholders demanding that professional standards are being met.
FICA believes that the present structure of the ICC does not lead to optimal decision making. It is generally accepted across a range of stakeholders that the current ICC structure does not conform to accepted principles of good governance. Its governance structure lacks independence, it lacks the perception of being independent, it lacks the ability to elect a healthy and pertinent spread of skills around the Board table, and it even lacks the ability to elect members to its major decision making committees. Too often we see decisions made at ICC Executive level being perceived as „not in the interests of the global game‟, instead being perceived in the interests of the powerful or those who seek to ally themselves with the powerful. In the 2011 FICA Player Survey, only 6% of players believed that the decisions of the ICC are made in the best interests of the global game.”
May continued: “We believe that governance is the number one issue in the game today – its solution provides the pathway for better and more equitable decisions surrounding future playing schedules, ICC Events, managing the Twenty 20 format, Decision Review Systems, investment in the game, allocation of resources, etc.  It is vital that the Lord Woolf led review and its list of recommendations are made public. One of the stated ICC‟s core Values is its “Openness and Honesty” – we hope that the Executive Board adheres to such Values, and we do not suffer a repeat of the ‘John Howard President’ election , where despite the stated Value of “Openness and Honesty” ICC gave no official reason for Howard’s rejection as President, and we also hope that we do not suffer a repeat of the disclosure of the independent audit of Zimbabwe Cricket financial statements, where ICC refused to make the KPMG report public, despite ICC‟s previous assurance of dealing with the matter in an open and transparent manner.”