County chairs renew ECB power struggle with fresh blueprint for cricket

England’s county cricket club chairs have launched a blueprint for the game that would boost their power and influence at the England and Wales Cricket Board, four years after the governing body’s restructure replaced them to improve diversity.

In a thinly veiled continuation of the power struggle between the sport’s governing body and its first–class counties, documents seen by the Guardian show the chairs are calling for an overhaul which would give them two seats on the ECB management board and bring them closer to the centre of the decision-making process. Their proposals also include the creation of a stakeholders’ board to oversee the performance of the ECB, which would include representatives from the management board, fans, player and sponsors’ bodies and would have powers to sack any director on the ECB board.

The Middlesex chair, Mike O’Farrell, emailed the interim ECB chair, Barry O’Brien, on Monday on behalf of the 18 county chairs plus the MCC, conceding that the clubs had not always “spoken with one voice”. He said: “We have challenged ourselves as to what we can do to be better partners with the ECB for the good of the game we all love.”

The chairs want to change the name of the first-class counties to professional counties, create a chairs association to meet at least three times a year and a six-strong subcommittee chosen from the 19 chairs to represent the county game in all key ECB discussions and negotiations. The move comes four years after the ECB put into action its own governance improvement programme, which removed county chairs from its board and replaced them with directors from diverse backgrounds and with specific skill sets.

The chairs’ plans to recover day-to-day influence at the ECB are