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Yorkshire : Colin Graves sadly faces tough questioning
MP Dame Caroline Dinenage is raising some serious questions about the chair’s intentions in an open letter from the CMS committee. It seems like she’s not holding back and wants some answers.
The chair of Yorkshire, Colin Graves, is once again being questioned by the parliamentary committee overseeing sports bodies. This is due to his recent statement about demutualisation being crucial for the club’s long-term success.
The chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Caroline Dinenage, raised concerns about the timing and content of Graves’ statements. She noted that his recent letter to Yorkshire’s members appeared to contradict his previous commitments to maintaining the club as a members-owned entity under his leadership.
On February 20th, Graves made an appearance in front of the CMS select committee, following his reconfirmation as Yorkshire chair during an EGM earlier that month. Yorkshire claimed to have engaged with more than 350 interested parties, including Mike Ashley, the former owner of Newcastle United. However, they determined that only his offer had the potential to preserve the club’s existing status as a mutual society.
In a letter to Graves on Thursday, Dinenage expressed concern about your change of heart regarding the club’s conversion to a private structure. Previously, your return to the club was not contingent on its demutualisation, unlike other bids discussed by the board. However, it seems that you now view this conversion as ‘essential’.
On January 16th, you assured the club members that ‘there are no discussions or plans to change the mutual status of YCCC’ before your bid got approved. It’s interesting because this contradicts your offer to the YCCC board in September 2023, which you denied knowing about initially, and that offer was contingent on the demutualization.
Dinenage raised questions about Graves’ involvement with the family trust, which is overseen by independent trustees. This trust was created following Graves’ bailout that prevented Yorkshire from going bankrupt in 2002. It currently makes up £15 million of the club’s £20 million “long-term borrowing” that Graves detailed in his letter to members.
He made a commitment to members that all potential profits “for me or my family trust … will be given entirely to a charitable trust that supports Yorkshire recreational cricket, including both men’s and women’s teams.” Dinenage, however, wanted more details about this pledge and set a deadline of May 31 for a response.
Dinenage wrote, “You mentioned earlier to the Committee that you don’t have any involvement in your family trusts. We would appreciate it if you could provide some clarification on the following matters.”
Does the ‘financial upside’ mentioned in your update on 20 May include the interest rates of 4% above the base rate? Will these interest rates be returned to you and your family trusts as part of the debt repayment?
For the second time in just two months, Yorkshire is under the microscope of parliamentary scrutiny. The committee’s “Equity in Cricket” report, released in April, pushed the ECB to monitor the club closely after the racism scandal. They want to prevent any return to the discriminatory culture that once thrived at the club.
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