Vodafone has warned the England and Wales Cricket Board that its £3-million (about R35-million) a year sponsorship of the game could be jeopardised if England tour Zimbabwe next autumn.
Lord MacLaurin of Knebworth, chairperson of the telecoms multinational, yesterday described the prospect of an England team visiting Zimbabwe with the current regime of Robert Mugabe in power as ”abhorrent”, and said that his company would be doing all it could to dissuade such contact.
Earlier this year, after much controversy, England pulled out of a World Cup fixture in Harare, but that was for safety reasons. Lord MacLaurin (66) a former chairman of the ECB, is adamant that an England visit to Zimbabwe would be bad for cricket and for his company on moral grounds.
He said: ”We do not want to support a side that goes and plays in a country with the sort of regime that is reviled not just by this company but by many in the country. To do so would be abhorrent and would be good for the brand image neither of Vodafone nor England cricket.”
Lord MacLaurin added: ”We have told the ECB that we would rather the team did not go to Zimbabwe. We believe in the cold light of day, and having had the experience of the World Cup, that it would be inappropriate for the tour to take place and as major sponsors we would certainly urge them to withdraw.”
Tim Lamb, ECB chief executive, played down the implications yesterday, and stressed that the prospective tour was constantly under review.
”Of course we have concerns too and have expressed them,” he said. ”It is a regular item of discussion at meetings that deal with England matters. We are very mindful of the issues that arose before the World Cup, and we will need to give serious consideration to concerns expressed by our sponsors. There has been no suggestion that Vodafone would pull the plug although we fully understand their image concerns.”
The pressure from such a major sponsor will leave cricket’s governing body in another quandary. On the one hand, it is obliged to fulfil its international fixtures unless the venue is deemed unsafe. On the other, it will not wish to antagonise a sponsor that has been generous and staunch over the past six years.
The ECB’s decision not to go to Zimbabwe in March was taken only days before the game and after opposition from the Foreign Office, human rights campaigners and Zimbabwe’s opposition, Movement for Democratic Change. Since then, conditions in Zimbabwe have deteriorated with the government earlier this month closing down the independent paper, the Daily News.
The ECB is halfway through a four-year, £3-million a year sponsorship deal that covers England teams at all levels. – Guardian Unlimited