Will the ECB be held accountable over Stanford?
More fallout from the Stanford affair today, with ECB chairman Giles Clarke rejecting calls to resign his position. News also that some counties are worried about the safety of money that they have already recieved from Stanford’s corporation, not to mention loss of future earnings.
The program of back-tracking and buck-passing is well underway by Clarke and his supporters within the game. The words of Somerset chairman Andy Nash, as quoted by the Guardian, demonstrate the malaise that has taken root within English cricket:
If these allegations are eventually substantiated by legal process then the real failure will have been yet another by the regulatory bodies whose purpose it is to protect bodies like the ECB from fraudulent practices and inadequate corporate governance by financial institutions. The idea that the ECB’s due diligence processes should prove more effective than those of the SEC or FSA at uncovering wrongdoing is laughable. The letters ECB stands for the England and Wales Cricket Board not the European Central Bank.
To suggest that the blame lies with the SEC (US Security & Exchange Comission) or the Financial Services Authority for the ECB’s greed and poor judgement is akin to blaming dangerous driving on the Highways Agency – laughable.
To further illustrate, the recent election campaign of Lord Marland, in opposition to Clarke, petered out after a number of the first class county chiefs refused disgracefully to even meet with Marland. The incompetence of those responsible for the future direction of English cricket is plain to see. Ironically, the Stanford deal was one of the issues mentioned by Lord Marland in his announcement:
All English cricket supporters will watch with interest how the ECB moves forward and demonstrates improvements to its governance and financial accountability, as befits a national game, and also to the future of Twenty20 cricket in England in relation to the much-trumpeted Stanford package.
David Collier, the ECB chief executive, is due to answer the counties concerns about the potential financial fallout on Friday, with Giles Clarke due to be ratified for re-election as chairman next week. Will pressured be applied on them to step-down from their positions, or will they be able to fall back on their support from within the counties to weather the inevitable media storm? The precedents in this regard suggest the latter is a good bet, as cricket administration seems to be rife with an old-pals culture and does not have a reputation for sound judgement or strong management.
Whilst there are those within the game who are calling for Clarke to resign, I suspect that they may be in the minority.
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