PCB boss Butt hints he won't resign even if players found guilty

Lahore, Sept 10 (ANI): Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ijaz Butt has made it clear that he has no plans of stepping down from his position, even if the team players implicated in match-fixing allegations are found guilty.

"This question has no relevance to the issue being discussed here," the Daily Times quoted Butt in a press conference, as replying to a reporter's query whether he would step down if the players were convicted.

"Where does the issue of my resigning arise, you are pre-empting things about players being found guilty," the PCB added, after a thought.

In response to another question on Pakistan team manager, Yawar Saeed, Butt shielded his old friend, remarking that he did not feel that Saeed had shown laxity in his duty and could not be blamed for something that involved the players.

He also said that the PCB was now taking a number of steps to ensure that such incidents would not occur again.

Butt seemed to be in a more relaxed mood in the press conference, after his stormy return to Pakistan when hundreds of people at the airport had booed him and raised slogans against him and the players.

Joking and exchanging banter with the reporters from time to time, it looked as if the PCB chairman had got a vote of confidence from the Presidency to carry on despite the ongoing spot-fixing and betting scandal involving the Pakistan players in England, the paper reports.

In Pakistan cricket, where the President directly appoints the board chairman, Butt was brought in by President Asif Ali Zardari who has been supporting him despite scathing criticism of his chairmanship.

Apart from the match-fixing scandal involving three key players, Pakistan has seen five different Test captains come and go in just over a year- Shoaib Malik, Younus Khan, Mohammed Yousuf, Shahid Afridi and Salman Butt, under Butt's chairmanship and now he is under tremendous pressure to resign. (ANI)