Counties may lose their right to elect ECB chairman
Jul 7, 2016 at 4:03 PM
English counties are facing a serious threat as they might probably to lose the power of electing the next chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) under proposals to introduce a fully independent board to run the game.
The ECB is going to change the governance system because if they don’t change the outdated laws then they will have to lose 5 million euros of annual government funding.
Among the many proposals cutting the number of county representative from the ECB executive board from two to one and establishing a nominations committee to decide on future chairmen.
Last year Colin Graves was elected by the counties for a five-year term as chairman of the CB, replacing Giles Clarke, who elected for consecutive three times. In future, a nominations committee appointed by the board could decide on Graves’ replacement.
Currently, there are 14 members on the ECB executive board with Andy Nash, of Somerset, representing the nonTest match grounds and Surrey’s Richard Thomson representing the larger counties. Peter Wright, the former Nottinghamshire chairman, is on the board as chairman of the ECB’s cricket committee and Ian Lovett, until recently Middlesex chairman, is Graves’ deputy.
The governance review is being conducted at the same time as massive structural changes to the county game are being considered. It is learnt that the governance review will not be completed until the shape of the future domestic T20 competition is decided at the end of this season.
For the governance changes need the backing of 75 percent of the counties as well as the county boards that make up the grass roots game.
The ECB is worried that unless they change the governance system they may face Football Association like situation. As FA was once warned that if they don’t change the governance system they will losing 30 million euros.
The ECB executive board was expanded under Clarke following the Stanford debacle to include more independent directors and former England women’s cricketer Lucy Pearson joined the board this week.