ICC shelves its World Club Championship until 2031 after India, England and Australia object

The ICC has put its proposed World Club Championship on hold until 2031 at the earliest after India, England and Australia refused to make room for it

Cricket's governing body will not stage a global franchise competition, or any other additional multilateral event, before 2031. The next Future Tours Programme, covering 2027 to 2031, is now set to mirror the cycle it replaces.

The resistance came from the three boards that pay for most of the game. India, England and Australia have told the ICC that an already crowded calendar cannot absorb new multi-team events unless something existing makes way for them.

The outcome leaves the governing body's search for new revenue roughly where it started, weeks before a strategic review by the consultants McKinsey is presented to members in full.

What the competition would have been

The World Club Championship was conceived as a tournament for the title-winning sides of the world's leading T20 leagues, bringing together the champions of the IPL, the Big Bash, the PSL, SA20 and The Hundred.

It would in effect have revived the Champions League Twenty20, the club event scrapped more than a decade ago, this time run by the ICC rather than by a group of boards.

The attraction for the governing body is straightforward. It earns nothing from the domestic franchise leagues that now dominate the calendar, and a club event of its own would have given it a property along the lines of FIFA's Club World Cup.

Why the Big Three said no

One source involved in the discussions said there is “no appetite among the Big Three for additional multilateral events”, while conceding that smaller nations were interested. Another described the concepts as “an ICC landgrab”.

India, England and Australia have been consistent on the point throughout: new events cannot simply be added. Space would have to come from somewhere, and they are unwilling to give up World Cups or the Champions Trophy to find it.

The three boards also control the bulk of the bilateral cricket that fills the calendar between global events, which gives their objection the weight of a veto.

A calendar with no spare weeks

The 2027 to 2031 window is already heavily committed. It carries two T20 World Cups, in 2028 and 2030, the Champions Trophy in 2029 and the ODI World Cup in 2031, on top of the bilateral programme.

Fitting a club tournament around that would have meant either a new window or the removal of an existing event, and neither was on offer.

Other ideas floated during the review have gone the same way. Proposals discussed earlier this year included shorter ODIs, four-team T20 competitions for international sides and continental championships modelled on the Asia Cup.

The money behind the review

The review was commissioned because of concern at the ICC that the value of media rights will fall significantly from next year.

Its Indian broadcast deal, worth a reported $3.1 billion across the 2024 to 2027 cycle, is viewed internally as unsustainable in its current form following the merger that created JioStar.

That matters more than any single contract. The Indian market is reckoned to generate close to 70 per cent of cricket's global revenue, so a correction there is felt by every member board.

What may still change

One structural change remains live. The World Test Championship could expand to twelve teams from next year, with Afghanistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe brought into the cycle, though the plans are not final.

McKinsey's full report goes to members at the ICC's next quarterly meeting, in Bali next month, and the governing body will have to find its answers on revenue within the calendar it already has.

For the leagues themselves, nothing changes. The IPL, the Big Bash and the rest continue to grow outside the ICC's structures, which is the problem the World Club Championship was meant to solve.

The only global club competition cricket has staged remains the Champions League Twenty20, and on this timetable it will not be replaced before the 2030s.

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