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Concerns identified by USACA Member Clubs
June 22, 2005
The following twelve areas of concern were identified by the member clubs of USACA as requiring action in the immediate future:
1. The entire board needs to be restructured. The current board members have acted in highly unprofessional and unethical manner. All current board members need to resign as a new temporary management team comes in. This team will automatically resign after 24 months or less (sunset clause). These are the people that are simply interested in completing the tasks as outlined in the comprehensive plan. These people will sign a detailed document to agree on every high ethical standard. All public statements are to be made by a single appointed person in a professional manner. After the completion of the tasks, the team will invite nominations from interested parties and pick a team that will function for next 12 months followed by automatic resignation (sunset clause). Prior to the dissolution of the second term, formal elections will take place with full ICC participation to ensure fair and impartial elections.
2. Real and/or perceived financial irregularities.
The financial function requires total overhaul with a complete set of checks and balance as well as very high level of ethical standards and full accountability with all necessary disclosures to be made in timely fashion. All financial auditing/reporting to be done by an independent CPA firm that will be employed by USACA. This CPA firm will sign up to procedures and policies to ensure clean and antiseptic financials. By law this firm will also have to abide by the US laws on accounting practices. The new board will have a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) who will interact with this firm. There is an immediate need to put together a comprehensive plan for fund raising.
3. Current board election procedure is far from adequate. The elections are being done on informal basis. There are allegations of falsified signatures and elected board members not allowed to be on board. The current board does not represent the actual community of active cricket players. The new election procedure will outline exactly step by step how all the members of cricket community will participate. The most important issue here is the total separation of election committee from individual nominees in order to avoid real or perceived unethical actions.
4. The USA Team selection process is highly contaminated. The final team to represent US must be made of best available players. Unfortunately, the current selectors have major conflict of interest in selection. The new selection process will ensure a better team for this country.
5. There are no unified standard constitutions for Leagues. Each league is acting independently which creates an environment of unethical actions. A detailed constitution must be prepared with the approval of ICC. All Leagues must follow the same rules.
6. Currently, the individual Leagues act to totally independent entities. Some are formal some are not. Some are incorporated as non profit organization and some are not. The entire system of Leagues needs to be streamlined.
7. The process to handle suggestion/complaints in non existent. A detailed procedure in accordance to ISO 9002 must be prepared.
8. Communication to individual Leagues is a major area of improvement. Each League has to know the vital details. A system needs to be set up for information flow down to the Leagues and players as well as cricket fans in USA.
9. Bringing Cricket to main stream USA has been totally ignored. This is a very important component of the USACA function yet no plan or progress has identified. Many ideas are being discussed on how to make this happen. Unfortunately, people that can contribute to this effort have no avenue to participate in the process.
10. There is no comprehensive effort for recruiting new talent. This resulted in ICC championship participation by less than acceptable team from USA. The future of the Cricket in USA is based on 18-21 year old players that need identification, encouragement and extensive coaching from professionals.
11. The umpiring for Leagues is fragmented and not organized. This function needs to be completely independent of the individual Leagues.
12. There are hardly any grounds in USA that meet international standards. This was evident when the possibility was discussed to hold some matches in Florida for ’07 World Cup. There is an urgent need to start working on identifying venues and invest some money in upgrading the grounds.
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