The International Cricket Council (ICC), on Thursday (June 22), during its Annual General Meeting in London expelled United States of America Cricket Association (USACA) following a unanimous vote, thus ending USACA’s 52 years as the ICC’s member governing body in the USA. The decision was taken after a Dispute Resolution Committee hearing that concluded last week.
The apex body, in 2015, had suspended USACA after its Review Group expressed “significant concerns about the governance, finance, reputation and cricketing activities of USACA” in its report.
Earlier this year in March, the ICC had given the USA board one more chance to avoid possible expulsion as an Associate Member of the ICC by asking them to ratify a newly proposed and ICC-approved constitution by April 1 that would implement sweeping changes to the board’s governance structure which included an overhaul of the board composition, appointment directors in different capacities and creation of six geographical zones among other things.
However, USACA’s refusal to ratify the ICC-approved constitution led to its expulsion. The big decision has come after USACA’s failure to unite the cricket community in the USA. The governing body, in its statement, said that it will come up with an outline which will be followed to establish a new board for the governance of the game in USA which will be able to unify the ‘fractured cricket community’ in the country unlike the USACA which didn’t genuinely exercise authority over the sport in the country.
“Further details will be issued in the coming days outlining the process which will now be followed to establish a new governing body for cricket in the USA that is capable of unifying the fractured cricket community in that part of the world,” the ICC said in a release.
The expulsion ended the episode which included three suspensions handed down by the ICC since 2005. The USACA managed to have the first two suspensions lifted but the failure to ratify the ICC-approved constitution, after it was suspended for the third time in 2015, forced the apex body to take the extreme step.