What are your thoughts on this?
More power to them - if the numbers are genuine* - then they deserve everything they get. HK are 17th and only that high because of their #1 ranking in non-ICC income - from 2016 i.e. Gov/Sports Institute/Blitz.
My only concerns around the scorecard have been that it does not take into account:
* the disparity of purchasing power of the USD that it is paid in (e.g. you can employ many more staff in PNG than HK for the same cost)
* the rate of change for any metrics - it only looks at hard total. I think the numbers should be a triangulation of hard numbers / rate of change (perhaps over three years?) and proportions (of population etc.) - so as to recognise members who are improving and/or cannot improve any further. (Bermuda is goo d example of this
An (extreme, I grant you) example of this is Bermuda:
- ~50% of the population are aged from 5-45.
- The population is ~65k.
- In 2015 They had 8,422 people participating (playing/in junior programmes etc.).
- This equates to one in every four "able" aged people between 5-45 are playing cricket (from participation in a dev programme to playing)
- This total had increased a thousand from the year before
Compare this to countries with stagnant numbers / higher populations who are higher up the chain on numbers alone getting more money... that's where a conversation can be had I feel.
Overall though, the idea behind the scorecard - and the practices it encourages is great. *Biggest problem is number fudging though - with so much money on the line countries have been known to "get creative".
