Posted by John, September 1st, 2010 - under Uncategorised.

Tags: Bribery, Cricket

Taking bribes is a natural market response to inequality. Where some are rewarded with millions and others doing similar work in a global competition receive very little, one logical individualistic response to this systemic inequality is to line your own pocket.

Global cricket is massively unequal.

As a worldwide product cricket is a very profitable venture. Most of the rewards go to the bloodsuckers in the media, the various cricket associations and the rich IPL franchise owners.

Some cricketers do very well too. But not Pakistan’s cricketers. They earn around $35,000 a year.

Ricky Ponting, Australia’s cricket captain, is paid a base salary of over $1 million and with endorsements and other emoluments earns more than $4 million a year.

Sachin Tendulkar, the Indian cricket superstar, signed an endorsement deal a few years ago worth $40 million.

After the Mumbai attacks in late 2008, the Pakistan Government in 2009 banned its cricketers from playing in the very very lucrative Indian Premier League where they could earn hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few weeks work.

This year 11 of them participated in the auction for spots in the various cricketing franchises the filthy rich own in the IPL, but not one was picked up despite the fact that Pakistan were the Twenty20 World Champions.

The massive inequality in global cricket is mirrored and intensified in Pakistani society. The poverty is staggering. Almost half the population live below the poverty line. The rich however are very very rich.

The country is one of the poorest and most unequal in the world. And yet its ruling elite are wealthy indeed. The political caste and business compete for the shares of profit the poor villagers and urbanised poor create. This criminal clique have and are raping Pakistan.

The floods in Pakistan have forced 20 million to flee their homes and now threaten the country with disease and starvation. The Pakistan Government’s lack of response to the floods show their interests lie in protecting their wealth at the expense of their people.

The interests of the rulers of the West lie in continuing the poverty and inequality, and in a case highlighting the barbarity of the western elite, drone bombing people fleeing the floods to stay alive.

The time has come to sweep away the rotten systems in cricket and globally that produce these outrages.

The first step should be to pay the Pakistan cricketers ten times what they are receiving now and give them back a little of the profits they create for channel 9 and the other media conglomerates around the world.

The next step would be to stop bombing Pakistan and use the billions our rulers give the corrupt criminals in charge of Pakistan not to fight ‘terrorism’ but to feed and house the people properly.

Cut Packer’s profits and Ponting’s plenty, not the pay of Pakistan’s players. Feed Pakistan, not bomb it.