Time to reform Cricket West Indies

AFTER MORE than a dozen years of reports and debate on restructuring the governance arrangements of West Indies cricket, proponents of the idea may have their best shot of securing reform with the latest report on the matter by a task force led by Jamaican businessman Don Wehby.

Several factors are now in better alignment for an acceptance of the Wehby recommendations, or a great portion of them, beyond any agreement on the long-standing argument that Cricket West Indies (CWI), the body that oversees the sport in the Caribbean, is not fit for purpose for today’s circumstances.

First, Mr Wehby and his team avoided the ‘let’s throw the bums out’ tone of Professor Eudine Barriteau’s document of five years ago, which called for “the immediate dissolution” of what was then the West Indies Cricket Board, to be replaced by an interim body while an “obsolete governance framework” was revamped. It is the CWI that would have had to disband itself.

And while Mr Wehby’s report, like former Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson’s in 2007, embraced the concept of West Indies cricket as a public good, and, therefore, insisted on stakeholder public involvement in its management, Mr Wehby’s formula is less intrusive than Mr Patterson’s, which had a whiff of public sector-type bureaucracy and, from our vantage point, the potential for mission creep and power grab by regional governments.

Another significant factor in this matrix – if not publicly acknowledged – is the wish by some in the leadership of Cricket West Indies, and the management of cricket generally, to place as much distance between themselves and CWI’s former president, Dave Cameron, whose perceived arrogance and abrasiveness often placed him at odds with many people in the region, including prime ministers. So, nothing from Mr Cameron’s tenure is secure, or sacrosanct. However, that mood is best taken advantage of before the antipathy towards Mr Cameron dissipates.

TOP-DOWN APPROACH

Translating these opportunities to transformative gains, however, will depend to a significant degree on how, and to whom, the proponents of change pitch their argument. It has generally been a top-down approach, without serious engagement of people who matter at the bottom.

The larger context of West Indies cricket is that it is, or it used to be, among the few truly unifying institutions of Britain’s former colonies in the Caribbean, especially when the region’s team won – as it did consistently for more than a decade and a half during the 1970s and 1980s. The West Indies’ dominance braced the region’s sense of identity and of its capacity to stand with, as well as outperform, global powers.

But over the past quarter of a century, the performance of the West Indies team has been, at best, inconsistent to poor. Cricket West Indies has borne most of the blame for this. It has been accused of retaining governance structures inadequate for the modern management of the sport; even its global partners/competitors have overhauled theirs. The CWI, its critics say, forfeited the trust of its partners, especially during Mr Cameron’s presidency.

Cricket West Indies, however, is a limited liability international business company, owned by six territorial associations, which have control of its board. That board elects, separately, a president and vice-president, who operate almost in full executive capacities, although CWI has a CEO and other executive staff.

Mr Patterson’s reform called for a two-tiered management structure. It included a 15- to 18-member general council, made up of appointees from various sectors, including governments. It is this council, under the Patterson arrangement, that would have elected the CWI president, either from within, or outside of, its ranks. The council would have also responsibility for “strategic planning and general oversight” of cricket in the region. Yet, the CWI would have retained a separate board, although with fewer members currently on the board.

REDUCTION IN BOARD SIZE

Mr Wehby’s task force retains what it calls a “stakeholders council”, but without the executive authority inherent in Mr Patterson’s proposal. On the face of it, Mr Wehby’s council would be more of a consultative, though potentially influential, body with which the CWI would engage. Critically, however, the CWI would not, on the face of it, lose its independence.

Mr Wehby’s task force, like Mr Patterson’s, calls for a reduction in the size of the CWI board – immediately – from 18 to 12, by halving, to six, the number of shareholder delegates. The number would be further reduced to nine within three years. Importantly, though, board members would be elected by shareholder delegates and the board, in turn, would choose a chairman from among its members. The chairman would have a non-executive role and would, with the board, set policy.

These, we believe, are ideas that can be sold. But the case can’t be made only at the level of the CWI and its board. There is now a need for a full engagement of the memberships of territorial associations, who, in the past, have been left out of the discussion.

The opinions on this page, except for The Editorial, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Gleaner.