"The package on offer to relocate the ICC to Dubai was very attractive and preparations are now in an advanced stage to move to the Emirate in August this year," he said.
Initially, the ICC will be located at Dubai Media City for two years before building and occupying its own premises in Dubai Sports City.
The move follows the ICC's decision to base its Global Cricket Academy at Dubai Sports City and sees the organization become the latest global sporting body to quit the UK, after athletics, rugby union and badminton among others, because of tax reasons.
Six other site options were discussed in June at the ICC's annual general meeting but on the eve of the vote UK Sport, Britain's national sports funding agency, at the behest of Lord's owners Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), intervened with a letter that stated the British government would be prepared to grant concessions.
However, when the budget statement was made, these were not mentioned and UK Sport subsequently wrote to the ICC to apologize after certain Cabinet members objected to granting special status.
Mani, an accountant by profession, said that while the ICC appreciated its links with the "home of cricket" where it has been based since its creation as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 with England, Australia and South Africa the original members, it could not ignore financial realities.
"Like many international governing bodies before us, it is clear that operating in the United Kingdom under the current system is not in the best interests of our members," he said.
The ICC's move will be seen as a further confirmation that Asia, where huge commercial and television deals based on the overwhelming popularity of cricket in the Indian sub-continent help finance the global game, is now at the hub of world cricket with the likes of England, where MCC ran the ICC until the late 1980s, no longer in charge.
Hopes that the ICC would remain at Lord's, in a modest office behind the stands at the Nursery End of the ground, were dealt a blow in December last year when Britain's sports minister Richard Caborn said he wanted to discuss the ongoing cricket crisis in Zimbabwe with the ICC "when they were next in town."
Mani replied at the time that Lord's had been the home of the ICC since its foundation.



