USA CRICKET
USA cricket was served a notice by ICC © Getty
USA Cricket Chairman Venu Pisike talks to Cricbuzz on a no-holds-barred interview on the notice of suspension issued by the ICC, adoption of USOPC guidelines, the ACE-USAC gridlock, internal kerfuffle in the board and allegations of conflict of interest and corruption with the board
USAC was put under notice of suspension when you attended the ICC AGM. The ICC media release only said you do not have ‘a fit for purpose detailed governance and administrative structure and systems in place’. What does that mean?
At this time we are waiting as we are expecting to receive a written notice from the CEO. But if I had to guess I know they sent a serious notice in March. And after that, there were several compliance issues and some things were inaccurate too. So we addressed that. And we sent a reply to ICC before the AGM, clarifying the inaccuracies and addressing some of the complaints that were raised, and also meeting some of the deadlines. The most important was the 2023 audited financials, which we submitted within time this year for the first time in the last five years. And then we also submitted progress on the couple of items, including the CEO hiring and USOPC current status. So the ICC Board reviewed, and then I think they’re satisfied with most of the compliance issues that were raised previously. But what I heard from my informal meetings after the board meeting, they want to make sure the CEO appointment is done, and then the usopc seems to be the biggest concern, so that will address most of the governance and operational related issues that were raised. In my opinion, the way I see the statement ‘fit for purpose’ is nothing but having an operational structure. Of course, we didn’t have a CEO for the last few months. And we are very close to making an announcement by this weekend, after the appointment, and that will solve the operational structure and the CEO will take over the operations immediately. And as far as the governance and the structure, yes, there were some internal issues which your previous article mentioned. Those accusations made by those 3 USAC directors in one of the examples where the board members are not following the process, writing to ICC and USOPC, making accusations by not following the process, even after multiple reminders. Trying to make the ICC believe that the board’s governance is not in order. We have taken steps to fix that. So probably that’s why ICC said, “Okay, we’ll give you twelve months time. And hopefully you show us and you have an operational structure, and also have your governance in order”. So that’s my understanding. But we still are yet to receive that letter from ICC.
You mentioned some of the complaints that ICC had. Can you throw some light on those complaints?
Yes, some of them are very minor, some of them are inaccurate. So for example, the minor one is like, we do not have an accountant in place. So this is inaccurate, and very minor, because we did have a part-time consultant in 2023. And we engaged them full-time this year. But they just assumed so when I asked ICC, why do they think we didn’t have an accountant? They said that the previous contract expired in December. So, they assumed we didn’t extend the contract, or we don’t have it. Typically, consultant agreements, are yearly, six months, right? So, we did extend after December, but just that ICC assumed they didn’t validate before putting in a complaint. So that is one example, I would say, and some of them about the independent director. So an independent director’s term ended in January. But we could not appoint him until March, because of the reason that we were in the middle of constitution amendments. So ICC felt we were non-compliant by not appointing the director on time. So even though USAC has a history that elections were not done for years. That time ICC did not raise any concerns, but unfortunately, they felt we were non-compliant, just by a month or two months delay. So these are some of the things that were disappointing in that notice. So, we took it to the board and explained to them the reasons. The constitution amendments took a little longer because we were proactively adopting USOPC regulations and guidelines into the constitution that were part of the USOPC NGB application process. So, those are some of the things and of course, we terminated the CEO. So they said you don’t have a CEO again, which we have now. The USOPC NGB application process was another thing. So they were concerned that whether we will be able to meet USOPC application process, because USOPC process is a two years long process. The success of USA in Olympics is because of the process they follow, right? We also saw it as an opportunity to convert ourselves as an NGB where functional and govern ourselves professionally. Now in order to do that we have to meet several criterias. So, we are in the process, but unfortunately, that’s a long process. It’s not a one or two month process.
What are some of the issues that USOPC has with USA Cricket. So what does USA cricket need to meet the criteria that USOPC wants?
There are several. So you have to adapt so many policies, including athlete safety, to governance to financial. So they have their own policies, we have to adapt those policies. We already follow some of the policies but we may need to amend them to match the USOPC regulations. And several of them are new to us. So, we have to draft using their templates and adapt it. And we also need to make some governance changes and incorporate athlete representation. USOPC requires 33%, athlete representation in everything, especially anything related to the game, or the board. So if you see our amended constitution, we have already adopted that. Of course, we haven’t implemented it yet, but we have adopted and will implement it this year. So currently, we have 10 board members, but if you were to have 33%, athlete representation, you need to have four player directors. So we have increased the board composition to 12, out of that four will be player director post. The appointments of players into the committees or the board should be managed by the Athlete Advisory Council. So, that council currently doesn’t exist. So that’s a process, we will start very soon. And then the AAC will conduct the elections for the player director positions who can represent players on the board. And also going forward AAC will nominate the players into the USA cricket committees. So the 33% criteria must be met for all the committees, especially operational and cricket related committees going forward and also in the board. So these are some of the changes that we must meet. But these won’t happen overnight. This takes some time to implement.
It has come to my knowledge that the USOPC is miffed at USAC for imposing a soft ban on picking USA citizens living abroad for its national teams. What’s your comment on that?
No, that is something I never heard and USOPC never expressed that to us. Now that is the first time I’m hearing this.
What is the criteria for USA-born players living abroad to play for the country?
So, it’s a good question. So, as we evolve, we need to have a clear policy. At this time, I think I may have to admit that there is no policy as such, but before the World Cup preparations, I think the cricket committee had made a recommendation that every player needs to come and participate in the trials for the national team selection. So, that is the policy that we adopted for the World Cup. But going forward, as you mentioned, we have actually started discussing this to have a policy and criteria in place for selection. I know there is talent living abroad. But at the same time, there is talent living in the US as well. So, we need to strike a balance on how we get the talent into the national team. We have just started those discussions. I think very soon we will have a clear policy set. So, that way, it will give a good definition and also clarify the players living abroad so they can plan around that.
What will be the mandate of the ICC normalisation committee that is about to be set up to oversee USAC for the next 12 months? What are they here to accomplish? What role will they play in decision-making?
The decisions have to be ratified by the USAC board finally, but they will definitely recommend to the board on what actions to take. There is no controlled funding in place either. The ICC will send the quarterly grants as they do.
What about the ACE USA cricket gridlock, what are some issues of contention?
I can only speak to some extent because this is a confidential contract. I cannot go into the details. But the contention is basically, not on the MLC or MiLC as some are thinking. So, the USA board is in full support of MLC, MiLC, and we made it very clear, several times and even to ICC, that we have no issues supporting MLC. As the matter of fact, without any confirmation commitment in 2024, we did sanction MLC earlier this year and sent it to ICC. And we made it very clear that there’s several things we can discuss later, even the annual commitments, but we want to support by sanctioning in time. So that shows our support, the contention basically is on the other side, where the USAC’s authorities and governance comes into the picture. So basically, the contract gives certain authorities including the national team commercial rights and the broadcast rights. Of course, part of that there are certain obligations for ACE to fund our activities, national team and support staff, but the contention is basically getting to an agreement. Maybe I better not go too into details. So, there is a contention in how much they will pay versus what the contract actually has. I know there are grey areas, certain things were not well defined. And the contention also on some of the regulations of ICC and nonprofit laws. We believe that certain things have to be removed or changed in order to meet the ICC membership criteria. And also, we were afraid that as we work with USOPC, some of these things might become a contention in becoming USOPC NGB. So, we offered to resolve this contract in two parts. One is MLC, MiLC, full support for that, and we can give you the licence based on revenue sharing. But on the other side, we are actually giving them options to resolve so USAC is not a breach of any of the regulations of USOPC, ICC or any nonprofit laws. And at the same time we want our authority to manage and govern cricket in the country and also manage our national teams.
So before you iron out the clauses in the contract, we have seen in the past three years that the players have been suffering the most because of these differences…
I don’t think there are players who are suffering. I know there was some confusion sometimes created by the statements from both sides, because that’s what one thing we want to resolve for sure. Players should be receiving message from one authority, but right now, the confusion is because of the two authorities communicating. And as far as cricket continuing, we are doing our best to continue cricket. There are complaints that we did not do anything last year to prepare the team for the World Cup. I know we did not there are multiple reasons for interior funding issue. So no point going back and blaming anybody for that. But if you see 2023, we started the year with a 600,000 debt. So, towards the end of the year, we were not sure whether we can clear all the debts, whether we can receive any funding from our partner, and whether we can get any advances from ICC on top of the general funding. We didn’t get any assurances by September or October. So unfortunately, we could not do anything, but we took the risk, we had plans to do something earlier this year. We showed her commitment by doing the national tournament, then Canada and Bangladesh series by spending a lot of money. We have talent, players have worked their way and there are several other factors supported their preparation, but we also believe that these preparatory camps and the pre series tournaments, tremendously helped our success in the World Cup. And we also can confirm and assure you that we already started the planning for bilaterals and planning around more T20Is around the WCL whenver we host our travel abroad. So the plans will be announced probably in a couple of months, but we are doing our best. You can also expect a top 6 full member nation to tour USA sometime next year or within the first six months of next year itself.
USAC has had three CEOs in the last three years. And the last two have served probably less than six months or about six months. So why is that happening?
A clarification, USA cricket did not terminate three CEOs. The first two resigned themselves. And the first termination happened early this year. It’s not something we planned or we wanted to do. It’s unfortunate but in a corporate world, sometimes when things don’t work, I think it’s better to part then wait too long and that’s what the majority of the board felt too. It’s not that the CEO who we hired was not capable but just that the board didn’t feel there was alignment towards our strategy and it was felt it may not work.
Why did USAC temporarily suspend two directors recently?
We adopted a board member conduct policy. And even before that and after that, we have reminded all the board that we need to adopt policies, we need to follow the protocols. We need to understand the difference between disagreements and violations. When you are disagreeing with a majority board decision, it’s a democratic process, there is nothing else right. They keep escalating that to ICC and USOPC which will not show good governance. Second thing, accusations. Whatever the reasons, right? If you think something is not right, then you follow the process to escalate. So there is escalation process, you brought it to board, we clarified. So if you still don’t agree, you take it to the ethics committee. So even USOPC clearly told the board, including them. They said you can follow your process raise it to ethics committee. If you are still not satisfied, or if you don’t trust your own ethics committee, you can even report to USOPC ethics committee, there is an ethics portal. So I even shared that after we adapted the policy. I told them going forward, please follow the process, raise the issues, escalate them through the process, but it still did not happened. So, it reached a point, these directors where they went to a nasty level of even demanding the suspension of USAC. That’s a serious step, any board member who if they are loyal shouldn’t take. So that actually hinted us that okay, it’s been a few months, we have adopted the policies, we educated everybody. But if things are still not going that route, then the Board has to implement the policies. Otherwise, there’s no point in having a policy. So part of that we followed it, we tried to get a justification for their actions. But they refused to comply, they refused to explain anything. And the board decided to stop that damage that has been done by shooting emails to external parties and authorities. So we temporarily suspended them to restrict their involvement, and then refer them to the ethics committee, because we want to be very transparent. We want to show that we follow the process, and then request the ethics committee to independently review if they have violated the policy or not.
It has also come to my knowledge that probably like three years back there was also a letter written by you, and one of the other directors to the ICC regarding similar ‘misgovernance’. And the letter also mentioned that the USA were not in a position to be an official host of the World Cup as well, and the ICC should take away the hosting rights. Is that true?
No, that’s not true. So let me clarify. I will come to the contents of the letter later, but the reason for writing that letter was at that time Parag Murata was the chairman. He was the chairman for almost three years by then. But as per the constitution, he did not appoint an ethics committee even after multiple reminders over the period. So there was no ethics committee when we wrote that letter. And the content of the letter is based purely on the chairman’s conflict of interest. And also the corruption charges, basically because the chairman disclosed that he had entered into consulting agreements with ACE companies at that time, but the agreements were not fully disclosed to the board. And that was one of the main reasons for the resignation of Iain Higgins. As soon as he came to know, there was a second conflict of Parag Murata who did not disclose that for two years,Iain resigned. Then the board pressured the chairman to disclose the conflict but he refused. Finally he disclosed but only disclosed the conflict but did not disclose the contents. But he also agreed that he received money towards these undisclosed conflicts. So there is no ethics committee, so we have no other option than to write to the ICC ethics officer. Again, the letter’s contents does not include anything about the World Cup, not even a word about the World Cup. Because, we strongly believed we want to host the World Cup. Some people deviate from that but that was not part of the letter. So I actually have a copy of the letter I can share offline if you want. So that’s not the issue. And again, the letter was sent to the ICC ethics officer and the CEO not to the entire board members. We love the organisation, we want to protect the organisation. That’s why we didn’t even go to the media. So that’s why its not in the media until now. Why? Because we want to protect the reputation of the organisation. We could’ve done similar damage. No, we didn’t want to do that. We only want to take actions on the conflict and the corruption to stop that we reported to the ethics officer.
One of the allegations in the suspended directors’ letter is that you stifled their voices and kept them muted…
So it’s not that I kept them muted. So for a month or so as these disgruntled members, disrupted the board meetings and wern’t letting anything to move in the board meetings. So I had no choice but to adopt a policy to use the mute option, and let members speak one by one, not that I’m muting them. So it’s not only for those three, it’s for all nine other members of the board. So in order to respect everybody’s time, in order to make the things move, and in order to stop unnecessary intervention, allegations, abuse and crosstalk, I had to bring that option. Otherwise, there is no way we can have the board to function. So I used it. And it was based on the recommendations of some of the members because he was they were disappointed that we are meeting so often, but nothing is moving because of the way a few members disrupted everything. So I used the option to mute. And on each topic, we gave enough time for everybody to speak. Thats the only way I could have run the meetings for a short period of time. But otherwise I didn’t intentionally mute anybody.
They also alleged that intimidation and pressure tactics were used to remove them from the directoral post. And they also said “we as minority members are being cornered and pressured to step down with veiled threats, suggesting that more aggressive measures could be taken against us if we do not comply”
So that’s, that should pick the answer. So if you’re not complying, yeah, there will be actions. But we did not intimidate. So yeah, all we requested was to be compliant to the policies. If you have issues, raise them through the process. But if you keep on disrupting what good is it doing to the organisation. In the process, you’re not helping the organisation, but you are only writing emails, disrupting everything. Yes, we want them to be compliant. Not only them but everybody is compliant.
The letter mentions that USC set forth a motion to amend its constitution in January this year, mentioning the need to make it USOPC compliant and strengthen its governance. However, the email mentioned the amendments were passed by ‘rushing’ the voting process. It is alleged that the chairman went against the advice of the attorney, members of the board and membership manager to send incorrect data in a media release after the election day. They also state that 908 eligible voters were disenfranchised because of that.
Sure, this is very important as well, so I will take some time to clarify. So on the word rushing, they used. The whole constitution amendment from start to end took six months. So for an organization, if it takes six months to amend the constitution, I don’t think anybody would say it’s a rushing process. So going into the details. We appointed Constitution Review Working Group (CRWG), in September 2023. So we had two board members, we had one from NGC, and we had two from the community. And one is a current volunteer. And one is a new person who is experienced with audit and compliance. In November, when we met in Houston in person, for the AGM, the first draft was presented to the board. That was in the presence of ICC, I believe USOPC may have been a part of it but may not have been present for full day. But yeah the USPOC reps were there, ICC was there. So the draft board was presented, we had a good discussion, we reviewed and made some changes and recommendations to the working group. And then from then we went in silos and presented it multiple times to the board. So after that first review, even the same draft was presented to the USA membership in the AGM in November. And then we requested feedback from the membership to provide any changes, requests or suggestions. So the working group received several requests, several suggestions. They adopted whatever they could, and also we went in silos to send feedback and revisions to the board a couple of times from November to January. So there was a thorough process done. And then in January, after the final submission was done, it was reviewed by the legal and they certified that changes were in compliance. The board reviewed and unanimously voted only after legal certification. The three members who are laying allegations, they also unanimously approved these amendments, because they were part of the process. They were in every meeting when the revisions were submitted and reviewed. They even provided some feedback. So I don’t know why they say it was rushed and also say it was my decision. It was a unanimous board decision at that time. Right. Then, after that we submitted to the membership for that application, because certain sections of the constitution have to be approved by the membership with 2/3rd majority. So we submitted that to our members. So at that time, we again took the legal opinion, who can vote on those. So, based on the legal opinion, anybody who is a member for 12 months by December 31 2023 is eligible to vote on those amendments, was the legal advice. Only the membership manager has access to the membership data portal, who can pull the data based on the requirement. So there was a miscommunication on the date. So he pulled the data accordingly. But we soon rectified that. As soon as we sent the ballot for voting, we rectified that. Those 908 members were pulled again, and all of the 908 members also received that ballot. So it’s not that we removed anybody from the ballot. So, it is on the record and the membership manager knows it. And our portal vendor we hired certified that. I just want to clarify that because this is a serious allegation, I just want to make sure I explained it.
And that email cites an example of ‘election engineering’, as they say, by claiming systemic corruption in the process of selecting a membership portal vendor. So they said that you gave that contract to your friend.
It’s a personal attack, but nothing else. So it’s a reputational damage to the vendor, basically, not only to me, but it’s also a deformation of the vendor, who were awarded the contract through a process. In fact, the ex-CEO was the one who actually ran the process, and was involved in the validation of this process, the committee appointed by the board. So there were three or four members from the board, and then assisted by the CEO who ran the process. Of course, we sent the RFP to three vendors, and also the current vendor. And then based on their assessment, their recommendation, board selected this vendor. I have no involvement, I was not part of the committee. And I did not find the contract. So it was Noor Murad who executed the contract while he was the CEO of USAC. So I don’t know, I can only say that much. I don’t think it’s beyond that. And the friend tag is conveniently used, just to complicate things. So the problem in the community is it’s a small community, people are only hearing one side stories, and these people conveniently tag something to defame people. Unfortunate. And the vendor that we currently acquired, they are not my friends. I didn’t even know them before I came to USAC. I know, one of the ACE investors had some stake in that with that vendor, but I only came to know them only after I became a director of USAC. So that should clarify that they are really, my friends not (laughs)
That letter also expressed their concern over legal invoices, amounting to 1000s of dollars, from two attorneys without any prior knowledge of theirs, or the board or even the ICC. And they further cast doubts over the selection of attorneys claiming one of them to be your friend again, and disregarding the previous CEO’s suggestion of announcing a tender for legal services for USAC.
Everything is incorrect. So the previous CEO never said that. But in fact, in September last year, to appoint a legal counsel, I had requested the board based on the professional experience of Patricia Whitaker to make her part of this selection panel who can identify legal counsel for USAC going forward. So she was part of that committee, she and another independent director. We waited three months, she could not bring a recommendation. So after that, we said we will go ahead with the existing legal counsel. So she actually ratified one of the legal counsel that USAC had been using since the last four or five years. After I made the recommendation, she actually accepted it. So, first thing Patricia Whitake failed to make a recommendation, after being accepted to be on the committee. And second thing, she accepted the recommendation just to continue with the existing attorney, and now they’re saying I did something wrong. It’s just a waste of everybody’s time. The invoices shouldn’t be a surprise. They clearly know which attorney we engaged. One for constitutional governance related because that’s his expertise. And the other one for our other matters related to contracts.
Srini Salver, the male player director, and the chair of the cricket committee, so the allegations against him are of conflict of interest, and ‘corruption’. He has been accused of engaging in coaching activities for fees, which the email termed as unethical. That email also highlighted despite repeated complaints, you did not institute an investigation into this.
Again, you can throw mud on people, and you let them take the pain to clear them out. It has becomes easy and convenient in our system, so this is not something new to Srini Salver. Unfortunately, it keeps coming back. So, and it was discussed in the board, and everybody discloses if they have any conflict, and this particular question was posed to Salver as well. In a board meeting, he clearly said, he’s not taking any money, he even submitted his conflict of interest. If somebody keeps wanting to complain, they at least should submit proof. Everybody signed a conflict of interest form. If anybody has any proof, they should submit it. Instead of just making allegations, that’s all I can say.
In addition to that, that email also alleged Salver’s shared broader agenda with you to exclude USA-eligible MLC players, players who have moved to America on MLC sponsored visa, to accommodate preferred players of your choice in the national team?
Again, so convenient to say something but numbers will say that in the World Cup team there were six players who actually were those MLC players. We don’t have any policy, even a soft one, that we should be selective on which MLC players or which non MLC players should be selected. There was never a policy. And the best example was the World Cup team
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Publish date : 2024-07-28 21:54:24
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Author : News-Sports
Publish date : 2024-07-29 01:54:24
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