ZIMBABWE Cricket chairman Peter Chingoka will be in London for a series of crucial International Cricket Council (ICC) meetings next week despite efforts by the British Foreign Office to deny him an entry visa.

According to a Cricinfo report, the British Embassy in Harare had recommended that Chingoka and Zimbabwe Cricket managing director Ozias Bvute be denied visas because of their links to President Robert Mugabe.

Mugabe is the patron of Zimbabwe Cricket.

The ban was only blocked by British Sports minister Richard Caborn, the report said, who feared denying the Zimbabwean administrators visas would jeopardise England and Wales Cricket Board chairman David Morgan's bid for the ICC presidency.

The decision to grant Chingoka and Bvute visas has reportedly angered Caborn's predecessor, Kate Hoey, who has called for sporting sanctions against Zimbabwe.

"Zimbabwe's cricket officials are at the heart of the dictatorship's web of corruption and political oppression," Hoey was quoted by Cricinfo as saying. "It is sad that the Sports ministry has used Morgan's chances -- which are really no chance at all -- of becoming ICC president to ask the FCO (Foreign & Commonwealth Office) to go against their better judgment and grant a visa.

"This sort of unprincipled manoeuvering looks very bad when we are asking other countries to stand firm in isolating those at the heart of Mugabe's regime."

Last month the Australian government barred their team from fulfilling a scheduled tour of Zimbabwe in September, ostensibly to protest against Mugabe's excesses.

The West Indies A tour of Zimbabwe remains doubtful after the Caribbean players' representatives expressed safety fears as well as morality concerns due to Mugabe's human rights record.

The London meetings kick off at Lord's on Sunday with the ICC Chief Executives Committee, including Bvute, tackling a "range of proposed changes to playing conditions as recommended at the recent meeting of the ICC Cricket Committee".

Chingoka will attend the two-day ICC Board meeting starting on Wednesday, where Zimbabwe will feature prominently after the ICC Cricket Committee recommended that the country be kept out of Test cricket longer than their proposed return in November.

The ICC annual conference will be held on Friday. -- Staff Writer.