A global Twenty20 league bankrolled by Saudi Arabia has been devised by an influential Australian cricket figure in what could be one of the most significant developments in the game in decades.
The proposed eight-team league is modelled on tennis and its grand slams, with teams to assemble and play matches in four different locations during the year.
A Saudi-backed global T20 league would be funded by the Kingdom’s SRJ Sports Investments, headed by former A-Leagues chief Danny Townsend.Credit: Stephen Kiprillis
The league’s main financier would be Saudi Arabia’s SRJ Sports Investments, the sports arm of the oil-rich Gulf state’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, and discussions about it are under way with the game’s world governing body, the International Cricket Council.
The concept has been secretly in the works for a year and is the brainchild of Australian Neil Maxwell, the former NSW and Victoria all-rounder who manages Australian captain Pat Cummins and is a former board member of the Australian Cricketers’ Association and Cricket NSW.
It has been developed in partnership with the Australian Cricketers’ Association, which represents current and former players, as a new revenue stream to tackle critical issues, such as trying to preserve Test cricket as a sustainable format beyond the big three of India, Australia and England.
Neil Maxwell is behind the plan for a global T20 league.Credit: Janie Barrett
According to sources with knowledge of the plans, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of talks, a consortium of investors is ready to get behind the as yet unnamed global league. Saudi Arabia would be the largest backer, with the kingdom prepared to inject $US500 million ($800 million) into the cricket start-up, sources say.
An entry by Saudi Arabia into cricket would add to a fast-growing sporting portfolio that includes LIV Golf, a Formula 1 race and hosting rights to the 2034 men’s FIFA World Cup.
SRJ Sports Investments is headed by Danny Townsend, the ex-Australian Professional Leagues soccer chief executive, and the Saudi Public Investment Fund is also now a part owner one of Australian cricket’s television broadcasters after last month taking a minority stake in streaming business DAZN, which bought Foxtel from News Corp.
Maxwell and Townsend declined to comment when contacted, but according to sources not authorised to speak publicly, the league would be played in vacant windows in the calendar between international cricket and existing nation-based T20 competitions such as the Indian Premier League and Australia’s Big Bash League.
The teams would be new franchises, based in cricket-playing nations– including one in Australia – and new markets, and there would be men’s and women’s competitions. The final could be staged in Saudi Arabia.
Funds from a new league could be used to prop up struggling Test nations, such as the Wests Indies.Credit: Getty Images
While players would be well compensated, the global league has been drawn up aspirationally as a way to establish an alternative revenue source beyond cricket’s established funding model. Under that system, member nations receive income from broadcasters and ICC distributions, but it is weighted heavily in favour of the game’s superpower India and to a lesser extent Australia and England, leaving small countries struggling for financial viability.
Sources say the travelling league would complement, not take away from, domestic T20 tournaments and was meant as an avenue for world cricket to address growing issues about its future.
Smaller nations would share in the funds raised and it is hoped they would be encouraged to embrace the idea and play less unprofitable cricket.
Australian Danny Townsend heads the sports arm of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.Credit: Getty Images
The Saudi-sponsored league would need the approval of member bodies such as Cricket Australia and the ICC, and the ultimate decision maker will be Jay Shah, the youthful Indian chair of the world governing body who was until recently secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
It could be a feather in Shah’s cap if the proposed league was approved and emerged as a solution to cricket’s most pressing problems and the 36-year-old could also be key to opening the door to Indian cricketers to take part. The BCCI would need to be convinced to relax a ban on Indian stars playing in T20 franchise leagues other than the IPL.
The Saudi involvement would inevitably draw controversy because of the regime’s deplorable human rights record.
It has poured billions of petrodollars into sport during the past five years, splitting golf down the middle by luring some of the best players in the world to the LIV circuit with astronomical pay cheques and making waves in soccer by purchasing 80 per cent of English Premier League soccer club Newcastle United and attracting superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema to a cashed-up Saudi Pro League.
There have also been huge outlays to stage the biggest heavyweight boxing fights in the capital Riyadh, as well as large investments in other combat sports and e-sports, and the country has been considering a bid to host the 2036 Olympic Games.
The government of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been accused of using its deep pockets to engage in “sportswashing” in an effort to improve a reputation diminished by rights abuses.
There was worldwide condemnation following the 2018 murder of high-profile journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Arabian embassy in Turkey, while rights groups have called out the exploitation of migrant workers in the kingdom since it was awarded the men’s soccer World Cup.
Saudi Arabia has defended its spending on sport as central to bin Salman’s Vision 2030 strategy to transform the country’s economy and referenced liberal reforms since he became the effective ruler of the absolute monarchy in 2017.
An associate member of the ICC, it has already struck up close ties with cricket, hosting the mega auction for the 2025 IPL in Jeddah last November.
Saudi Arabia has minimal cricket infrastructure but is in the midst of a staggering construction program that includes state-of-the-art new stadiums and futuristic cities.
