The financial report, which singled out Cameron for criticism on several occasions, was commissioned by the current CWI board and conducted by independent auditors Pannell Kerr Foster (PKF). Among other things, it raised concerns regarding an inadequate accounting system that enabled financial irregularities to go unreported.
Cameron’s legal team has already requested a copy of the contentious document, which has already been leaked, but Astaphan has also been quick to point out that the structure of the CWI remains a board of directors and all decisions were taken and approved at that level.
“If the auditor is in fact making so-called findings on matters that were dealt with by the board and they are so concerned about irregularities and abuses; the directors, including the present ones, from top to bottom, are going to have to come forward and explain their votes to the region and the shareholders,” Astaphan said on the Mason and Guest radio show.
“You can’t just decide to throw one man overboard and say well there goes Cameron swimming down the lagoon again. Collective responsibility is very important,” he added.
The lawyer strongly rejected the notion that the board members were bullied into voting by the former president, as has been previously suggested.
“It was said that the directors were subservient, subservient, grown men, grown independent men, successful businessmen, politicians and all were subservient to Cameron, that is why they went along with the votes. As a Caribbean man I would consider that to be contemptuous of my position on the board.”
“There is an implication that there was this and that but everyone went along with Dave Cameron like the pied piper and the rats into the pond.”
After surprisingly ending six years of the Cameron administration in 2019, the Skerritt and Shallow body promised significant improvements to the player, regional cricket board dynamic, which had soured over previous decades.
Under the new administration, the cricketers, board and players association seem to enjoy a less acrimonious existence, but previous issues of players choosing to make themselves unavailable for the regional team, while continuing to take part in lucrative T20 leagues around the world has remained an issue.
The Skerritt association has, however, insisted that no action would be taken against players who choose to go that route. Cameron has again questioned the merit of the approach.
“The Shallow-Skerritt experiment has failed, basically what that Shallow-Skerritt experiment did was it put the players ahead of the region and that is the challenge,” Cameron told the Mason and Guest radio program.
“Someone had attacked me and said some players weren’t happy and I said to him you could name the players that weren’t happy on one hand versus the region,” he added.
“If you are running a business and you are trying to move the system forward you have to look at greater good not just what’s good for a few players.”
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Former West Indies and Barbados batsman, Philo Wallace, believes the combative leadership style of former CWI president Dave Cameron means he will never get the support of the current board, in his bid for ICC Chairman.
This assertion has come from former CWI President Dave Cameron who believes that the current CWI leadership is not looking at the precedent of players’ leadership records when selecting captains.
“We felt as an organization that Hetmyer would be a future leader for West Indies. The way he conducted himself when we won the 2016 Under-19 World Cup and coming through the ranks,” Cameron said while speaking as a guest on Line & Length on SPORTSMAX.
“Hetmyer is a very confident young man, very aggressive and talented, we felt he could be someone who could lead us and be a future captain of the West Indies.”
Cameron spoke as part of a review of the leadership roles in the team and CWI managerial structure after the side won one in five matches and finished near the bottom of the table with captain Pollard once again contributing very little with the bat.
After 23 matches in four T20 World Cups, Pollard has scored 254 runs at a poor average of 14.11. Since he was appointed West Indies T20I captain in September 2019, Pollard has played 31 matches, winning 10, losing 16 with five no-results.
During the T20 World Cup, Hetmyer topped the batting with 127 runs averaging 31.75. Only two others managed over 100 runs – Evin Lewis (105, avg 21.00) and vice-captain Nicholas Pooran (103, avg: 20.60) - as the defending champions bowed out.
“I am disappointed but not surprised, we tried a different method a few years ago and we started to have results. This administration has decided that they wanted to go back to what has been tried and failed… so the results were always there,” Cameron said.
“We won two games at the 2019 World Cup and now we won one at this event. Everybody has a different strategy and different leadership styles. You require different types of leadership and management depending on where you are in your cycle.
“In 2013 when we took over, West Indies Cricket was at a serious crossroad with our players and finances and we had to make some different decisions then.
“In my mind Cricket West Indies needs professional leadership. It’s not just West Indies cricket, I think cricket as a game is not growing as it should because we focus on the game itself rather than opportunities within the sport to expand it so that so many more people can participate. That is where I was, and I think this is where we need to be heading. So, in my mind, however you want to structure CWI, you need to take it out of this parochial structure and give it the opportunity to really perform as a company.”
During an interview on the ‘Good Morning Jojo Sports Show’, Cameron said even if his bid was not successful it would be his hope that successor to Shashank Manohar, would share his zeal for eradicating the economic disparity between big and small cricketing nations.
By big, Cameron spoke of Cricket Australia (CA), the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
“The system which exists within the ICC needs to be changed and I was there challenging that,” said Cameron.
According to Cameron, media rights is the arena in which the big three make a killing, to the exemption of smaller cricketing nations like the West Indies.
“Australia’s media rights for six years is 1.2 billion Australian dollars, the BCCI media rights for five years is 950 million for the international rights and 2.5 billion for IPL and the West Indies Cricket Board, if we’re lucky, will get about 50 million for the next five years,” he said.
With the much more open nature of access to information, Cameron believes ICC members like the West Indies must struggle to meet the demands of professional cricketers under the present conditions.
“What is happening to us is that our players are demanding to get paid the way Indian players, the Australian players and the English players are paid, and they’re right; they are doing the same amount of work but we are in different economies,” Cameron explained.
Cameron’s bid for ICC Chairman is timely, and he explains that timeliness in terms of having a seat at the table before there is another apportioning of media rights and the like that will disproportionately be split up.
“If we don’t do it now we are going into another eight-year cycle of ICC rights from 2023 to 2031 and I guarantee you that within three to five years, West Indies cricket and West Indies cricket players would be extinct,” he said.
“Don’t select me as chairman but make sure we select someone who’s willing to make changes within the ICC,” he said.
Manohar stepped down from the role of ICC Chairman just this month, with Singapore’s Imran Khawaja filling the post on an interim basis.
Khawaja, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly, and England’s Colin Graves are the men who Cameron wishes to challenge.
Graves has, for a long time, been touted as favourite to take over the role.
The legislation, which was implemented as the region jostled with the cash-rich T20 leagues for the commitment of its top players, stated that players who did make themselves available for domestic competitions would be ineligible for international selection.
As a result, many of the region’s top players were often left out of the line-up, which left the Windies' Test and ODI sides shorn of some of their best talents. Cameron insists that the hope at the time was to encourage more balance between the West Indians taking part in cash-rich T20 leagues and representing the regional team.
“It was never about not wanting players to play around the world. We respected that, we accepted that, but, West Indies cricket doesn’t have a product if we don’t have our best players playing. So we needed to find a way to get our players to have the understanding that you can’t play everything,” Cameron told the Mason and Guest radio program.
“In the early days, I had a conversation with the players about telling us what they were going to play and when they would be available. So the selectors could understand where they want to go. After the strike occurred in India players decided that they weren’t going to play, and for the reduced salaries, so the West Indies first policy never actually got a chance,” he added.
“It was never intended to disenfranchise anybody, but look at what is happening in New Zealand, they still play in the leagues but they give their all to New Zealand when New Zealand is on the stage. That’s all we were saying, as our senior players, you can’t play everything.”
The former president of Cricket West Indies is pushing this vision as he attempts to become the next Chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC), a platform that will provide him with the opportunity to create a more equitable environment in cricket globally.
It is a job made harder for not having the support of the CWI but Cameron, who needs two votes to become a contender, is confident that he has a legitimate shot against ECB Chairman Colin Grave and possibly India’s Sourav Ganguly.
“I have those votes I don’t think it will change. I am still waiting to hear about Ganguly’s future in the ICC. They have not finalised the election process yet,” said Cameron.
During an interview with Indian Express, Cameron revealed his belief in a longer Indian Premier League (IPL), while noting the irony that the cancellation of the ICC World Cup paved the way for the IPL in the same window.
“The IPL is way a more valuable product than the T20 World Cup. Let’s be very clear about that,” he said. “India will make a lot more money and so too the players. The players themselves would prefer would playing in IPL than the World Cup.
“A lot of T20 leagues need to run concurrently, which is not happening now. Everybody wants to not clash with the other guys. The IPL needs to happen alongside BPL, CPL and Big Bash and the best players will get picked in the best leagues.
“There will be room for everyone including the Indian players who are unsold in the IPL. They have the opportunity to play elsewhere. One has to make a decision on tradition versus profitability.”
That being said, Cameron lamented the lack of growth in the sport, believing it should be played in more non-traditional markets that will make the sport more valuable for all concerned.
“We need to grow in China and other places. It is a plan that has to include India. Any globalisation will require investments from India,” Cameron said.
“A team like the West Indies plays less international games in a year but their players are able to play in the best leagues around the world and then they come to play for the country.
“That way players make more money, their board will not have to spend money on retaining its best players and we focus on the continuous development of the sport with that money.
We are living in a capitalist world. We are trying to talk about tradition versus what the players want. The players want to be paid.
“Yes, Test cricket is great and it is a tradition and it will survive for another few years between the big countries but the truth is smaller counties like Afghanistan and Ireland should not be forced to play Test cricket until they can be competitive. You are wasting resources.”
He continued: “This thing of trying to do more ICC events is not going to help the smaller countries because there is not enough space in the calendar. Test cricket should be a choice for smaller teams like Afghanistan and Ireland, it should not be mandatory.”
The audit, requested by Cameron's successor and conducted by external and independent auditors Pannell Kerr Foster (PKF) raised concerns about an inadequate accounting system that enabled abuses to go unreported and posed a threat to "the board's long-term sustainability."
The audit report singled out Cameron for criticism several times. The Jamaican was president of CWI (previously WICB) from March 2013 until March 2019. Cameron was defeated during a re-election attempt by current president, Ricky Skerritt.
Cameron said he first became aware of the report when contacted for comment by ESPNcricinfo in April.
The businessman is demanding that he is provided with a copy of the audit report from CWI within 48 hours in order to "respond fully" to the "allegations made by PKF."
A letter from Cameron's attorneys stated "our client maintains that he has serious concerns about the credibility of this report, which involved the Chairman of the Audit and Risk Committee selected and/or appointed by the President or Board.
"In the circumstances, and having regard to the basic principles of fairness and the right of our client to protect his reputation, our client demands, without prejudice to any rights he may now have, a full copy of this report within 48 hours, and the right to respond fully to all of the questions, comments or allegations made by PKF, and statements made by Mr Holding and the President within 21 days.
"Should CWI whether by way of the Board or management or otherwise seek in the meantime to publish the report, or refuse to meet our client's demands for a copy of the report and time to respond, our client will have no alternative but to seek the appropriate orders and remedies from the High Court."
It has been reported that the letter from Cameron's attorneys was received on Monday.
Extracts from the audit report appeared in publications across the region.
West Indies fast-bowling legend and cricket commentator Michael Holding alluded to a couple of sections - though he has not mentioned Cameron.
Ricky Skerritt, the current CWI president, acknowledged in a media statement that the report "uncovered some illustrations of questionable executive standards and practices."
Cameron's attorneys further stated that "the President's statement and especially the use of the word "uncovered" carries the imputation that PKF uncovered previously hidden and unknown material, which justified or warranted the making of serious questions, comments or allegations directed at or against our client as the President of CWI.
"There is no question that Mr Holding believed that the contents of one part of this PKF report raised the real prospect that the offence of money-laundering either occurred, or may have occurred, and/or exposed CWI to the risk of involvement in money-laundering. At all material times, our client was the President of CWI. These allegations have now gone viral throughout the region and elsewhere.
"As indicated above, our client has not seen the report, nor has he been given any opportunity to respond to it, either by PKF or CWI. In fact, at no time did PKF seek to ascertain any fact or comment from him. However, the report or parts thereof were made known to ESPNCricinfo and Mr Holding."
Cameron, 51, was a director of the then West Indies Cricket Board between 2002 and 2019 and was elected president in 2013.
Cameron’s tenure as president was tinged by controversy and conflict with several West Indies players and he lost the presidency to former West Indies team manager Ricky Skerritt in 2019.
However, in recent months the Skerritt administration has come in for criticism and the West Indies teams have had a poor run of form in all formats, prompting discussion as to whether Cameron would consider another run at the presidency.
“The first time I ran for a cricket office was 2013 for president of Cricket West Indies. Prior to that my work was what put me forward and persons would come and say we need your help here or we believe you can lead here and there,” Cameron told Sportsmax. TV.
“If I am asked then obviously I would consider it but it would be under different circumstances and the situation is that we would have to find a way to get everybody in agreement because what you don’t want is the fragmentation of the boards, the issues, it’s very difficult.”
He admitted that there isn’t much appeal to stepping back into the hot seat, especially with the myriad of issues affecting the region and sports administration.
“To be honest, West Indies cricket is very difficult. It’s difficult to organize. You’re talking about 16 different countries, different parishes, different views, different races, all those things play a significant role and it’s the challenge we have in the CARICOM,” Cameron reasoned.
LIAT (the airline) has died because the governments of the OECS couldn’t get it together and agree. There is no silver bullet. There is no one man or one woman who can change the fortunes but it’s really a message that everybody could buy into, and that is kind of what I was trying to do.”
He did offer a solution to the issues that ail regional cricket.
“My view is that a merit-driven system is what works,” he said.
“As a region, full of talent, very bright people let us try and focus on a merit-based system, get the best people in all the areas and I think we will start seeing success.”
According to reports, Cameron will be seeking nominations for the post but is yet to make a request that the CWI support his bid.
It is not certain if the CWI would support a bid from Cameron either after the former boss and the man who ousted him, Ricky Skerritt, had very public differences, not just during their election campaigns, but recently.
Skerritt investigated Cameron’s tenure as president by way of an audit where there were a number of questions regarding accounting practices of the organization.
CWI vice president, Dr Kishore Shallow has not commented on whether or not the CWI would back such a bid, saying he wanted to wait to discuss it with the board upon the occasion of receiving a formal notice on the matter.
ICC Chairman, Shashank Manohar, will leave the post when his term ends this year with the ICC slated to discuss the election of a new boss in the very near future.
At the moment, frontrunner to fill the spot being left vacant by Manohar is England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chief, Colin Graves.
Graves was expected to be elected unopposed when he steps down from his five-year sojourn at the helm of the ECB in August.
Cameron was president of the CWI from 2013-2019.
Speaking on Antigua Observer Radio show, ‘Good Morning Jojo’, Skerritt said he had not responded positively or negatively to a letter from Cameron because it did not seek a response.
“[…] we received a letter from my predecessor which, in effect, he said the letter speaks for itself and he said, looking forward to your support. Nowhere did the letter ask for anything,” said Skerritt.
Skerritt was referring to claims from Cameron that he sent a letter requesting that the CWI support him in his bid for chairman of the ICC, in effect offering him as a candidate the organization nominates.
“The letter was simply saying about all the things that he said I knew about, and in other words, I knew all these things he is going to do so therefore he is looking forward to my support,” said Skerritt.
“He, in effect, was assuming that because Cricket West Indies knew the issues, that he could look forward to our support; and I suppose he feels like that is an automatic support and so the letter came across as look, I expect you to support me. I know he has the right to think that, but however, he has gone on to tell people and I am not sure where he got it from, that I have said I am supporting the [former] chairman [Colin Graves] of the ECB [England & Wales Cricket Board],” he said.
Skerritt, in response to comments that the CWI would be offering its support elsewhere, said no such decision has come because nobody has announced they were yet running for the ICC’s top post.
“Nobody, including the chairman of ECB, to the best of my knowledge, has announced that he is going to be running for the ICC chairmanship,” said Skerritt.
Despite Skerritt’s claims, United States Cricket has written to the ICC, indicating their willingness to nominate Cameron for the top post. Cameron will need two nominations if he is to be part of the process of electing a new ICC Chairman.
If confirmed, it could mean a second consecutive challenge for incumbent Wilford ‘Billy’ Heaven. Heaven easily saw off opposition from former vice-president Mark Neita in 2019 to secure a third two-year term.
While insisting that, at this point, a decision had yet to be made, Perry admitted that he was far from pleased with the current state of cricket on the island of Jamaica and it was an option he was strongly considering.
“It could be a possibility. I’m not confirming that but I’m still giving it some thought. It’s a lot that you have to give up,” Perry, who recently became president of Jamaica Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (JAIFA), told the Mason and Guest radio program.
“I strongly believe that we need some very good leadership and we need some serious work to bring back our cricket. Our cricket is in a desperate situation and I think that management and leadership, we have to start from there to get everything streamlined so that the pathway is very clear,” he added.
Heaven has been president of the JCA since 2013 when then-president Lyndel Wright did not seek re-election. Of interest, however, is the fact that Heaven’s upcoming re-election bid will be the first since the JCA is believed to have voted against fellow Jamaican Dave Cameron in his re-election bid for Cricket West Indies (CWI) president. The move was widely condemned in some quarters of Jamaica’s local cricket fraternity.
Hinds was subsequently approved unanimously during the cricket club’s annual general meeting and election exercise at the clubhouse on Thursday, July 23.
Hinds, in his brief remarks following his elevation, urged the members of the club to “protect the assets of the newly upgraded facility.” He also wanted to the club to “continue with its development programs from under 15 all the way to senior”, adding that the club must maintain its core values of integrity, respect and rich in spirit, talent and love.
Hinds also invited with the support of the membership gathered, to appoint Cameron, President Emeritus, which allows him to be a part of the new executive.
Cameron served in the role of president since 2001 and has been a member of the club for just about four decades. In his remarks, he thanked the community, membership and the partners of the club for their support. He succeeded the late Vincent Wong and Noel Silvera.
Cameron is firm in his belief that Kensington can be transformed into a “modern-day sporting organization with a great business partnership aimed at creating world-class players.”
Meanwhile, Hins’ executive that will include Radcliffe Daley – 1st Vice President; David Bernard Jr – 2nd Vice President; Carole Beckford – Secretary; Guatam Kumaraswamy – Treasurer; Wayne Lewis – Assistant Secretary; Marlon Kennedy – Assistant Treasurer; and Brian Blair – Club Captain.
Lorna Litchmore, Raymond Smith, Delbert Gayle, Jamie Hay and Ryan Francis will serve as executive members.
During the last three years, the club won three major trophies and are the defending Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) T20 champions. In the incomplete, senior cup competition, the team played four matches this season that was cut short because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sporting entities across the globe continue to battle the economic fallout from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the spread of the virus bringing a halt to almost all international sport. In cricket, specifically, the massive disparity between the previous earnings of the ‘big three,’ England, India and Australia and the rest of the smaller nations leaves them even more vulnerable to financial devastation.
The issue of economic disparity was one that was broached by the Cameron-led CWI administration two years ago in a paper to the ICC termed the ‘Economics of Cricket’. The revenue-sharing model had been adjusted in 2017, but Cameron believed it still fell well short of a truly equitable system. The former president believes the coronavirus emergency that has greatly exacerbated the situation, shows the dangers of the current model.
"With the current COVID-19 pandemic wreaking financial havoc, the less wealthy cricket boards like West Indies, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and Zimbabwe will suffer more if they don't stand up,” Cameron said in an interview with the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian.
"The gap between wealthier and less wealthy cricket nations is widening and will contribute to less wealthy nations being less competitive and the devaluing the international cricket product. The gap immediately expedites the flight of talent away from bilateral international cricket as the less wealthy cricket nations are disadvantaged in funding their professional domestic and national retainer contracts.
"Given the current situation with the COVID-19, the gap will widen further as the less wealthy cricket nations won't be able to sustain investment in cricket and player development, infrastructure and administration," said Cameron.
