French cricket scandal: Women's national team disbands
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00:00 And France is not known for playing cricket yet in the last few years.
00:06 Its women's team has participated in official tournaments organized by the global governing
00:12 body.
00:13 Now, in November, a France 24 investigation raised doubts over the country's eligibility
00:19 to take part, and now the women's team has collapsed.
00:24 Peter O'Brien, tell us more.
00:25 What is this?
00:26 Is this a phantom team?
00:28 Are these real players?
00:29 These are real players, Shona, certainly.
00:33 So as you said, in November, our investigation revealed that France Cricket, the governing
00:39 body for cricket in France, which has the right to manage the sport in the country and
00:46 to have national teams given to it by the ministry via another organization.
00:51 But they are the official governing body in France.
00:54 Now, our investigation found that they were allegedly faking matches in order to get more
00:59 money from the international governing body, the ICC.
01:03 And another benefit for having figures...
01:05 How do you fake a match?
01:06 Sorry.
01:07 So for instance, there would be matches planned with the women's second division, and these
01:13 matches would come to pass.
01:15 There would be no evidence of these matches actually taking place.
01:19 I went with Héloïse Mellon, our journalist, video journalist, and we actually recorded
01:26 some matches taking place.
01:27 There were men's matches happening instead of women's matches, which were supposed to
01:30 be taking place.
01:32 There was also photographic evidence from other matches.
01:35 And the latest report out today has yet more evidence of alleged fake matches.
01:42 Now, this also allows France Cricket to put its women's national team into ICC tournaments,
01:48 national officially recognized tournaments, which I'm told they're not eligible to do
01:54 so because they don't actually have that many women's teams playing cricket in France.
01:59 How many do we know?
02:00 So from what I was able to gather, there are three women's teams that regularly compete
02:06 and have enough women to regularly compete, perhaps four, no more than that.
02:11 Nevertheless, on Saturday, this Saturday, the season will start anew with again a tournament
02:17 including 10 women's teams.
02:19 There are serious doubts over whether this tournament will be able to take place.
02:22 The ICC has told Alison Mitchell of the BBC Stumped podcast that they've looked into the
02:28 allegations and that there's nothing to do about it, essentially, that they consider
02:33 the affair closed.
02:34 But as you'll see in the report out today, the women's national team has collapsed because
02:40 17 of the players called for further investigation, which essentially has not come to pass from
02:47 the ICC.
02:48 And they've basically been punished without explanation as a result.
02:51 I didn't even know that France played cricket.
02:56 I didn't even know that it was a thing in France.
02:58 Yes, well, not many people do.
03:00 Certainly not many French people.
03:01 They think it's polo.
03:02 They think it's croquet.
03:03 But it does happen in France.
03:04 That happens in another over 90 associate ICC members around the world.
03:08 And there are millions and millions of dollars dispersed annually to these smaller nations.
03:14 So it is not just a question of France, but it's a question of global cricket as well,
03:19 Shona.
03:20 Now, we can find your report.
03:22 Tell us about your report that you've made.
03:23 It's out on the website.
03:25 You can find it right now on France24.com.
03:27 Thank you so much, Peter O'Brien there.
03:29 Fascinating story about French cricket.
03:31 I didn't even know it existed.
03:32 Stay tuned.
03:33 There's more news coming up on France 24.
03:35 Stay with us.
03:35 [BLANK_AUDIO]