More woes for cricket’s administrators in the US

Concerns about standards of governance in cricket have been raised in previous columns. Several recent events suggest that they remain valid. One of these is focused on how the game is governed and financed in the US.

Between 1965 and 2017, the governing body was the United States of America Cricket Association or USACA. In 2005, it was suspended from the International Cricket Council’s annual conference owing to controversy over its election processes. Although the ICC suspension was lifted in March 2006, on the understanding that a new constitution and elections would be concluded by March 2007, the USACA failed to achieve this. It then received a fresh suspension, which was lifted in 2008.

However, issues reappeared in 2015, when an ICC review expressed significant concerns about the USACA’s “governance, finance, reputation and cricketing activities.” This led to another suspension and the ICC cut off funding. In June 2017, a Dispute Hearing Committee led the ICC Full Council to vote unanimously to expel the association later that month. Caretaker governance of US cricket was undertaken by ICC Americas until January 2019 when a new governing body, USA Cricket or USAC, was approved as a new ICC Associate Member.

Failure to agree on a constitution, including one drawn up by the ICC, lack of transparency over contracts with third parties, debts of over $4 million generated in part by legal costs, lack of funds to support the national team and to run tournaments, coupled with a poor record of developing grassroots cricket, lay behind the ICC’s decision.

A further factor was that the USACA had ceased to represent the majority of clubs and leagues in the country. This followed a decision by the USACA board in 2012 to