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]

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