Cameron dashes CARICOM’s hopes of urgent meeting

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – There is unlikely to be any urgent meeting between the West Indies Cricket Board and CARICOM to discuss the radical Governance Review Report which has called for the immediate dissolution of the WICB.


Speaking at the Cayman Cricket’s Annual Awards Dinner last weekend in George Town, embattled WICB president, Dave Cameron insisted that the Board of Directors first needed to go over the controversial report before any meeting with CARICOM could be held.

Grenada’s Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell, chairman of CARICOM’s Cricket Governance Committee, had said earlier this month that an “urgent meeting” had been requested with the WICB to discuss the implementation of the panel’s recommendations.

“There is also a story going around that the WICB is disrespecting the leaders of CARICOM and just let me clear the air as well,” Cameron told an audience including Premier Alden McLaughlin on Saturday.

“We received the report from this committee the day before the committee made it public. We have a scheduled Board of Directors meeting on December 12th and I have instructed the shareholders to review the document we have received and to come back to me with written submissions by the fifth of December, where we will discuss all the items and then we will meet with the governments after that.”

He continued: “The final report [of the panel] was never discussed with the WICB so we’re only now having that opportunity. So once we’ve have a chance to look at it we will then meet with our government as soon as possible.

“We have a number of professionals who sit on the West Indies Cricket Board and just calling a Board of Directors meeting is not that easy.”

Cameron was speaking against the backdrop of comments from Mitchell who said earlier this month that the proposed December 12th date for a meeting “can’t be a demonstration of the urgency that we (CARICOM) seek”.

Mitchell, who had consulted Cameron on a date for the proposed meeting, said at the time he expected “a much earlier meeting than the West Indies Cricket Board president had in fact indicated.”

The Cricket Review Panel, which was chaired by UWI Cave Hill Campus principal, Professor Eudine Barriteau, also recommended the resignation of the current board and the appointment of an interim board “whose structure and composition will be radically different from the now proven, obsolete governance framework.”

Also, the panel recommended that a change management expert be installed to help run the affairs of cricket in the region until the new governance structure could be implemented.

And while Mitchell said he did not expect resistance from the WICB, Cameron on Saturday countered by arguing that the WICB was a sporting organisation and as such, needed to be “free of interference from governments”.

“What is important – and I must emphasise – is that the West Indies Cricket Board is a sporting organisation. We’re a sporting body,” the Jamaican pointed out.

“And while the history of the WICB and its socio-economic and political connections are extremely important and we understand its relevance to our regional psyche, we are a sports organisation.”

He continued: “International sporting organisations such as the IOC, FIFA and the ICC, are concerned about two major things and that is governance – which has to do with our structures and accountability throughout the organisation – and our autonomy, which means that the organisation and its leadership must be selected free of interference from governments.

“We’re not saying we don’t want the governments to participate, we’re saying that the decisions of the organisations must not be influenced by governments.”

The Cricket Review Panel was appointed by CARICOM’s Prime Ministerial Committee on Cricket earlier this year and tasked with the responsibility of assessing the governance structure in West Indies cricket and making recommendations.

It also comprised Sir Dennis Byron, president of the Caribbean Court of Justice; West Indies cricket legend Deryck Murray; Warren Smith, president of the Caribbean Development Bank, and Dwain Gill, president of the Grenada Cricket Association.

Inflated Egos and spite is what is killing our cricket. What makes it worse is that it’s actually cemented in selection policy