The International Cricket Council said it will release a portion of the 2003 World Cup money that had been withheld from its member countries but refused to divulge the exact amount citing 'commercially sensitive nature' of the figures.
The decision was reached after ICC's commercial arm IDI received an update on the progress of the negotiations with Global Cricket Corporation, the marketing rights holder of ICC events till 2007, the game's world governing body said in a statement at London on Wednesday.
Based on the latest assessment, the ICC decided during its two-day Executive Board meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, that it should release more of the withheld money while still ensuring that it retained adequate funds to cover any potential liability.
"This money has always been out members' money and has been retained only to deal with the claims from GCC," ICC President Ehsan Mani said in the statement.
"During the meeting we have been able to get a more detailed understanding of the claims that are being made and this has allowed us to release this money and adjust the formula used to retain the remaining funds," he said.
India, New Zealand and England besides hosts South Africa were the countries whose share of the World Cup profits were withheld following compensation claims from GCC who cited instances of contract violation by the said countries.
India faced damage claims after its players signed an altered contract while New Zealand and England had their booty jeopardised when they refused to play in Kenya and Zimbabwe respectively last year.
The ICC has withheld USD 6.5 million of India's money, while USD 2 million each remains to be paid for England and New Zealand.
The ICC, however, confirmed that it was not in a position to provide exact figures of the money that would be withheld from each country or returned because of the commercially sensitive nature of this material.
"The figures are obviously commercially sensitive so we are not in a position to give exact numbers," Mani said.
"But what I can say is that under the new formula, each country will be treated in exactly the same way with each member contributing the exactly same amount to the reserve fund.
"Those countries that had additional funds withheld will now receive a refund to bring them into the line with the other members of the ICC."
The ICC statement, however, said that South Africa would be the biggest beneficiary of these decisions as it had the most money withheld.
