ECB’s costly reshuffle

THE ECB have had to pay out more in severance settlements, re-hiring and new appointments during their botched restructuring than the £1.8m a year the first-class counties receive in funding from the ruling body.

Nothing sums up the mess more than former England captain Mike Gatting being removed from his role as ECB managing director of cricket partnerships but then kept on in a humiliating position as a cricket partnership ambassador for 50 days a year.

Even the official ECB press releases are getting it wrong, yesterday spelling England batsman Gary Ballance as Balance.

Meanwhile, such is the paranoia at the ECB about leaks that divulging confidential or commercially sensitive information to the media is now regarded as a breach of contract and potentially a sackable offence, a stance that is being written into staff contracts.

This approach coincides with the appointment of former C4 executive Rosie Ranganathan as head of people. Ranganathan replaces Lesley Cook, the former HR head who was a victim of an ECB cull that saw many employees aged over 50 leave the payroll. The ECB say changes in the terms are designed to modernise what were deemed to be old-fashioned contracts. AT least there is now a Culture Secretary who understands the sporting brief. John Whittingdale has the respect of both the Premier League and FA through his sport select committee chairmanship, although both organisations have previous with him. The PL weren’t happy when Whittingdale said half of all top-flight clubs had been in administration when in fact it was only Portsmouth. The FA didn’t like Whittingdale giving their former chairman Lord Triesman the platform of parliamentary privilege to make unproven corruption allegations against FIFA. Nor did they appreciate him accusing them of not fully co-operating with the Garcia report into the murky 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding.