May 1, 2017
The future of USACA as the governing body for cricket in the USA is in serious doubt. The ICC Board said the ICC Full Council should "consider the expulsion" of USACA from the ICC membership at its meeting in June, because the organization had failed to co-operate with efforts to unify the cricket community in the USA.
May 1, 2017
The future of USACA as the governing body for cricket in the USA is in serious doubt. The ICC Board said the ICC Full Council should "consider the expulsion" of USACA from the ICC membership at its meeting in June, because the organization had failed to co-operate with efforts to unify the cricket community in the USA.
All is not well off the field in USA cricket's administration – (Photo Courtesy: Peter Della Penna)
USACA had already been temporarily suspended from ICC membership in 2015, its third such suspension over the last 12 years. It will remain a member of the ICC until and unless the Full Council votes to expel it in June, but will stay suspended until then.
"The decision to pass this resolution was not taken lightly by the ICC Board," ICC chief executive David Richardson said. "Our focus throughout this two year process has been on the unification of the USA cricket community behind USACA to grow and develop the sport. But it has become clear that this is just not possible and, having invested so much time and resources into helping USACA and with little in the way of cooperation from USACA, the ICC Board now felt that the only remaining option was for the ICC Full Council to consider expulsion of USACA as a member of the ICC.
"USACA's refusal to engage in the process, to meet a number of fundamental reinstatement conditions, to provide responses to further requests for information and its apparent failure to put the ICC Board-approved constitution before its members without legitimate excuse undermines the all-important objective of uniting the sport."
The ICC Board said the cricket community in the USA was "severely fractured" and it did not believe that USACA "genuinely exercises authority over the sport" in the country. It said that only a small number of leagues in the USA were members of USACA and that the "vast majority" had chosen not to join the organization.
Recognizing this problem, the ICC Board said, it had set up a Sustainable Foundation Advisory Group (SFAG) to determine how to remedy the situation, but the USACA had failed to engage with the SFAG.
In April, the USACA had said its members had voted against ratifying the ICC-approved version of a revised constitution. Instead, USACA announced its members had voted to ratify a different version of a revised constitution that had "minor edits" from the ICC's version.
"During its various meetings, the SFAG developed a revised governance model built upon best practice in USA sports governance and the principle of unification to provide a sustainable foundation from which the sport could grow and develop," the ICC Board said. "The ICC Board subsequently considered various versions of this model and, in February, requested USACA to put a final version of a constitution to its membership for approval.
"Despite this request, it appears that USACA failed to send its members a copy of the ICC approved constitution and instead presented an alternative version to its membership, which was subsequently adopted at a Special General Meeting on 8 April 2017. The alternative constitution included proposals that the ICC Board had specifically rejected as well as other material changes that had not been approved by the ICC Board. The ICC Board considered that all of those proposals and changes were likely to frustrate a successful unification process."
Courtesy: ESPNCricinfo
