Yorkshire CCC members face pivotal vote on club’s future at EGM

At 6pm on Thursday the county will try for a third time to hold an EGM at Headingley with members asked to vote through structural changes key to the club’s future.

Unless they are approved, there is a very real chance the Leeds ground could lose the right to host June’s Test against New Zealand and July’s one-day international against South Africa. That could be ruinous for a heavily-indebted club whose business model is geared around being a venue for England matches.

At a club which has historically made internal bickering an art-form, the latest schism has been over November’s appointment of Lord Kamlesh Patel as chairman in the wake of the racism scandal surrounding Azeem Rafiq.

Patel sacked 16 members of off-field staff and appointed a new coaching staff headed by Ottis Gibson, plus Darren Gough as managing director of cricket.

Vice-president and former chairman Robin Smith has described Lord Patel as overseeing “the worst management it has ever had in my lifetime” and pointed out his appointment is invalid because Yorkshire failed to file a rule change with the Financial Conduct Authority allowing them to appoint a non-member to a board without sufficient members.

Two attempts to address that and make other changes such as removing the veto held by the Graves Trust, to which £14.9m of Yorkshire’s debt of around £22m is owed, failed because the club did not correctly follow its own constitution.

The ECB temporarily removed this summer’s internationals as punishment for the Rafiq scandal and reinstated them in February on condition the changes went ahead. Tonight is their deadline.

ECB board member Martin Darlow supported Patel on a blog yesterday, although given Smith has described him as “an ECB plant”, it remains to be seen if it will help or hinder him.

“I firmly believe that Kamlesh is the right person to lead Yorkshire to a new future,” wrote Darlow. “With a strong team supporting him and a clear path for the future change, the club can unite again. Our hope is that unity will prevail and the members of Yorkshire County Cricket Club will come together and vote with future-focused intent at the forthcoming EGM.”

Many members have already voted by proxy, but those in attendance can do so in person.

Yorkshire’s first game of the new season is in two weeks.