France Cricket organized fake women's matches to get funding from ICC: Reports

A local French report has accused France Cricket (FC), the official body for the sport in the country, of staging fake games to secure funding from the International Cricket Council (ICC). The world body has said it's taking the issue seriously and will begin an investigation in the coming days.

Former French women's international cricketer and an erstwhile member of the board, Tracy Rodriguez told France24 that she had her doubts about the number of women's games the board claimed to host.

When she decided to visit the venues of some of these games, she didn't find any cricket being played.

"Two or three times I [went] there, people were having picnics and kids cycling around at the time of the game," she told France 24. "Then the day after I would see the results of the games online."

The state-owned news television network went to a similar match as well and had the same experience. But three days later, FC showed the results of the match on their website.

The report also said that the ICC provides 60-70 percent of FC's budget. So, out of a total of $520,000 for 2022, $320,000 was from the ICC, and almost half of the ICC funds are meant to support women's and juniors' cricket.

---

"Most clubs cheat" - a men's cricket coach in France

The report also quoted James Worstead, the coach of a fourth-division men's team, as saying that FC requires every club to have a men's and a women's team to play in the top leagues.

"Most clubs cheat, they pretend to have a women's team," he told France24. "They pay for licences and then they fake score sheets online … We have refused to fake matches and that means that even if we qualify we're likely to never be able to get a promotion."

Damningly, the report said FC has fines in place if clubs fail to turn out a team for games. The board's fine collections was €20,210 in 2021 which decreased to €5,248 in 2022.