Twitter Banned By The ICC
February 15th, 2011 | by Jen |Players and officials have been banned from tweeting during World Cup matches because the International Cricket Council fears they may be contacted by illegal bookmakers during play.
The decision, led by the ICC’s anti-corruption and security unit, is intended to remove the potential for players and officials who use Twitter during matches to be approached by people with links to illegal betting.
”When it comes to issues of corruption we prefer to err on the side of caution,” ICC spokesman James Fitzgerald said. ”We don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun but there is a chance that sensitive information could be passed on during matches in this way, even inadvertently, and we just feel that team managers’ phones should be kept for operational purposes only.”
Australian team manager Steve Bernard had been a regular tweeter during the past six months while the team had been playing, but his reports will not be seen during the World Cup.
”This recommendation is not confined to the Australia team manager but all teams in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 and is certainly not a reaction to anything the Australia team manager has said or done in the past. It’s merely a precaution and is not something we are overly worried about at this stage.”
The ban comes less than a fortnight after Pakistan trio Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir received minimum five-year bans for their involvement in the deliberate bowling of no-balls in a Test against England at Lord’s last year. The ICC and its anti-corruption unit were heavily criticised for the scandal having been uncovered by a British newspaper, the News of the World, rather than by its own full-time investigators.
Players and officials will still, however, be permitted to tweet when matches are not occurring.