President summons meeting with cricket board officials over discord
Officials of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) in the three counties were summoned to meetings with President Bharrat Jagdeo at State House yesterday for discussions that will hopefully end the ongoing discord among stakeholders surrounding elections and other issues. Allegations of flaws in the financial operations of the board, an injunction by the Berbice Cricket Board (BCB) against the GCB and the absence of a quorum at the board’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) were at the centre of the discord.
Following the litigation, Acting Chief Justice, Ian Chang had recommended the intervention of the Ministry of Sport in the issue which led to yesterday’s meeting with the Guyanese Head of State.
The meetings were held separately with the cricket board officials and other stakeholders of the three counties with President Jagdeo, in the company of Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Dr. Frank Anthony.
Minister Anthony will be issuing a statement on the issue but, in an invited comment, BCB President Keith Foster told the Government Information Agency (GINA) that President Jagdeo requested that consultation be facilitated more frequently at the board level in the different counties.
The President also explained the direction in which he wishes to see the board functioning in the future, Foster said.
“It is a work in progress so we will have to wait and see because the different boards obviously will be having different ideas,” Foster said.
At a July 8 press conference, President Jagdeo had described the GCB fiasco as an “unhappy situation” which clamours government’s involvement and “to some extent contributes to the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) behaving the way it does.”
“We don’t have strong representation there and it reflects the disorganized nature of our own cricket,” President Jagdeo said.
The issue of Government’s involvement in the affairs of cricket has been fully endorsed by President Jagdeo who has been one of the early advocates for the same approach to be adopted at the regional level.
“Given that sports are so important to our wellbeing, particularly cricket in the West Indies to our psyche and everything else, then we cannot help but be concerned about the state of cricket in the region, President Jagdeo had said at the July 8 press conference.
At the recently concluded 32nd regular meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), leaders had heeded President Jagdeo’s call for their intervention in the stalemate between the former West Indies captain Chris Gayle and the West Indies Cricket Board by resurrecting the Prime Ministerial sub-committee on cricket.
Gayle had lamented his continued exclusion from West Indies cricket saying that the situation warranted the intervention of regional Heads. His concerns won the empathy of President Jagdeo who called on his counterparts to grant Gayle his wish. (GINA)