Cash-strapped Yorkshire CCC accused of rejecting financial assistance before Colin Graves bid was accepted

Writing on ‘X’, the social media platform, Mann responded to news of Graves’s impending return with a withering attack on the present board.

“I can confirm that the board of Yorkshire cricket club refused to talk to the three people I provided who all offered alternate routes through their financial problems,” he wrote. “Not turned them down, but wouldn’t even talk to them.”

Mann added that “the way they dealt with matters was extraordinary”, saying that “one week they asked me to get them £5m in cash by the weekend”.

The 63-year-old went on: “The people I brought forward may not have been successful in raising money or acceptable. But as they were never properly spoken to, how did the board know?

“Meanwhile, a great British invention, beloved around the world will continue to totter forward incoherently and occasionally problematically.”

Yorkshire refused to comment on Mann’s accusations. However, a source close to the refinancing discussions described them as out of hand, saying that the club had explored every viable alternative during months of trying to avert the very real threat of administration/insolvency due to costs incurred by the racism crisis.

Yorkshire say they spoke to more than 300 brokers, Indian Premier League franchises, Pakistan Super League franchises, American investors, and so on, in an effort to keep the organisation afloat.

Earlier this week, The Yorkshire Post revealed that of the two viable offers still on the table, Graves had beaten Mike Ashley, the high street billionaire, to be awarded a period of exclusivity until January 5 to finalise the terms of his rescue deal.

The club owes circa £16m to Graves’s own family trust and around £5m to various creditors, with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) having advanced money to help it through the winter months.

Mann’s is the second political intervention into Yorkshire cricketing affairs in the space of a few days.

In another attack on ‘X’, Alex Sobel, the Labour (Co-op) MP for Leeds North West, wrote: “Don’t need people like Colin back at the club.” Sobel was responding to a tweet which, in turn, ridiculed an interview Graves gave to Sky Sports last summer.

Regardless of one’s preference for who takes charge at Yorkshire, readers may be forgiven for reflecting that politicians have had rather a lot to say for themselves throughout this crisis - from Julian Knight, the MP for Solihull, to his former colleagues on the DCMS select committee, which, as The Yorkshire Post revealed, ignored key evidence at its hearing in November 2021 before going on to praise the mass sacking of Yorkshire club staff.