ICC want volunteers for the World Cup? Not me, thanks very much

Guest columnist FRED BOYCOTT does not like the International Cricket Council's request for unpaid help during next year's World Cup in England...

The International Cricket Council is advertising for 4,000 volunteers, or "cricketeers" as they like to describe them, for the 2019 World Cup in England.

The ICC of course run all major international tournaments around the world. They are very good at making money from their events.

Star India have paid almost $2bn to the ICC for broadcast rights for the 2019 and 2023 tournaments in a package covering an additional 16 other tournaments, while the ICC reported capital and reserves of $150 million in 2016.

And so back to the World Cup.

The organisation anticipates over a million spectators attending the matches and over 1.5billion watching on TV.

^{Charlotte Edwards and James Taylor helped launch the ICC's World Cup volunteer drive}

Tickets for the 48-game tournament don't come cheap, the most expensive advertised being a staggering £395. The cheapest ticket to watch England in London is £70.

All in all it will be a nice little earner.

Charlotte Edwards and James Taylor are fronting the recruitment campaign - presumably a paid gig. They have produced a slick video to entice people in and have even persuaded the usually publicity-shy Andrew Flintoff to make a cameo. 

Now I may be missing something here but why would a cash rich multi-million pound worldwide corporation need to recruit volunteers?

The ICC are not a charity. They are a global sporting body that controls all the major cricket tournaments around the world. They are filthy rich, rolling in it.

I'm sure the work the volunteers will be asked to do is essential to the smooth running of the tournament and as such their work has a value. If it has a value to the ICC then they should pay for it. Why wouldn't they? It beggars belief that they can recruit 4,000 workers to do a minimum of three shifts each and then not pay them.

Volunteers are actually volunteering to make a wealthy organisation even wealthier!

^{Australia are defending the World Cup iin 2019}

I'm sure the 'cricketeers' will enjoy the work and do a mighty fine job but there is no reason on earth why they should not be paid for their time and effort.

There are many cash-strapped charities, if you can find one you can trust, that would benefit far more from 4,000 volunteers.

As the ICC seem so keen on using 'charity' workers maybe some charity from them wouldn't go amiss. They could review their extortionate ticket prices. I'm sure they could afford to reduce ticket prices to a maximum of £30 per game and still make a vast profit.

It's never going to happen, of course. 

I for one will not be volunteering.

We have a saying in Yorkshire along the lines of: If ivver tha does owt fer nowt – Allus do it fer thissen. 

Roughly translated it tells us that charity begins at home not by making some other bugger rich at your own expense.

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