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LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ijaz Butt will not attend the logo unveiling ceremony of the 2011 World Cup and a meeting of the central organising committee to be held in Mumbai on July 14.

Instead, Director Cricket Operations Zakir will represent the PCB in the meeting.

According to sources, the PCB chief will not attend the meeting, as the board is involved in legal proceedings against the ICC.

“Since we are in the process of having the ICC disputes resolution tribunal hear out appeal against the moving of the World Cup matches from Pakistan and we have also talked about a proper legal challenge against the ICC decision, we have to see what our lawyers say,” a board official said yesterday.

The official said PCB chairman Ijaz Butt and chief operating officer Salim Altaf had been invited to attend the two events on July 14. “We will do whatever our lawyers tell us to do because we don’t want to damage our case in the ICC,” he added.

The PCB is fighting to regain hosting rights of its share of World Cup matches that were shifted to other host countries, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by the ICC executive board due to security concerns. But the PCB said since the security situation is the same in other host countries, Australia or New Zealand should host the 2011 World Cup and the 2015 event held at the sub-continent or the country be allowed to host its share of matches at neutral venues. Both proposals by the PCB have been rejected by the ICC and the other host countries who had, however, said Pakistan would get the entire hosting fee of $10.5 million for its share of World Cup matches.
source: geo.tv