Colin Graves exclusive: I'm ready to ride to Yorkshire's rescue again

Graves has confirmed that he wishes to return to an organisation that he saved from going bust in 2002.

Although the financial situation is not nearly as stark as it was then, with Headingley some 48 hours from being written off before Graves ploughed money and expertise into a business that had debts of £8m, no assets, no income streams and no international staging deal, it is nonetheless disquieting.

Yorkshire’s latest accounts referenced “a material uncertainty” over the club’s “ability to continue as a going concern” pending successful refinancing, with some £16m owed to the Graves Family Trusts, of which he stands independent, with the club’s total debt now likely to be approaching £20m.

Yorkshire are expected to announce losses of £2m-£3m in their next accounts, amid the crippling fallout of the racism crisis, which has seen numerous departures, settlements, payouts, legal fees and even positive initiatives which now have to be paid for, such as a circa £500k annual commitment to diversifying the club’s pathway programme.

Graves, the multi-millionaire founder of the Costcutter supermarket group, who turns 75 on Sunday week, told The Yorkshire Post that he is “ready to ride to the rescue” and can “turn things around in three years basically”.

It is understood that Yorkshire’s efforts to refinance have encountered problems, with bank interest rates as much as three times higher than the four per cent terms they are currently paying, and they still have a £500k-plus High Court legal claim outstanding from Wayne Morton, their former physiotherapist, who is suing on behalf of himself and other staff summarily sacked by Lord Kamlesh Patel, the outgoing chairman, in December 2021.

The announcement last Friday that Patel is to stand down at the annual general meeting in March has added to the prevailing uncertainty, and although Yorkshire continue to explore ways to complete the refinancing, complicated too by a limited cash flow, the temptation to grasp the outstretched hand of Graves, a man with many admirers as well as critics, must be significant and is sure to be a topic of conversation at Friday’s board meeting at Headingley.

A representative of that board is understood to have recently sounded out Graves, who left Yorkshire in 2015 for a five-year stint as chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, and he could be a popular choice with Yorkshire members, who respect his work for the club and the sense of stability he brought in his time at the helm.

Graves told The Yorkshire Post: “The club knows my views. If I come back, it will be on my terms. I’ll work with the board. I’ll work with everybody who’s there. But I’ll run it how I want to run it and I know I can turn it around in three years basically.

“I’m keen to do it. I don’t want money for it. I don’t want to be paid. I will give it my all and if it’s seven days a week, it’s seven days a week to get the thing back to where it needs to be. There’s a lot to be done.

“Basically, I know I can sort out the financial position going forward and I can get Yorkshire back on an even keel. We’ll put the club back together from a members’ point of view and from a players’ point of view and everybody else. We’ll move on from everything that’s happened and get to where we need to be as a county cricket club.

“It’s up to the club. I know I can bring to the table what Yorkshire want at this point in time, which is healing all the wounds, getting the members back on side to being a members’ club, working with the board to get them in the right position going forward and to sort out the financial situation that they’re looking at.

“I’ve got loads of contacts, a load of people (I can bring in) going forward. I’ll get hold of it. We’ll get the income back. We’ll get Yorkshire back to where it needs to be. It’s virtually exactly what I did in 2002, to be honest.”

Graves has offered to meet the board face-to-face and he had this message for his critics, those who perceive him to be part of the Yorkshire old guard.

“A lot of people who say things about me don’t know me,” he said. “They judge me on comments made by other people. They don’t know me at all.

“All I would say is just look at my track record, both in business with Costcutter and what I did there, where I grew a business with 85 per cent Asian franchisees, and in cricket, where we turned things around at Yorkshire, bought the ground, won the County Championship in the last two years I was there as chairman and then what I achieved at the ECB. I think my track record stands up against anybody’s in business and sport.”

Commenting on the chairperson situation, a Yorkshire CCC spokesperson clarified: “Lord Patel will step down as chair of Yorkshire County Cricket Club at the next AGM.

"A new chair will be appointed following a thorough, fair and robust recruitment process, to ensure that the right individual is in place and continue the significant progress which the club has made in his tenure.”

Graves believes that he is that individual and is ready and willing to help.